Harry Potter and the Magical Affinities
by ReadingMad
Summary: Harry feels that he's adjusted rather well considering. One day he was living in a cupboard dreaming about punching his fat cousin in his pig face and then the next he finds out he's a wizard and he's going to a bloody magical school. YEAR 1 NOW COMPLETED (Slytherin Harry,re-telling different plot and background story, still Harry and Hogwarts more info in author note)
1. Chapter 1

**Authour note:**

 _Rated M for Language, and future violence and sexual scenes (though not for a while as Harry is 11.)_

 _Harry is not the boy who lived in this and Voldemort was not a thing, there was a war that Harry's parents fought and died in, you will find out about that as you read._

 _Pairing: At this point, I'm not set on pairings or if there will be one specific pairing, some teenagers get around you know ;)_

 _This fic starts off similar to Harry Potter in the sense that the way he grew up with the Dursleys is the same. However, the war Harry's parents fought and died in is different and the plot is very different from Harry's introduction to the wizarding world._

 _Some characters, magical theory, and the law may also be different in this world, all will be revealed as you read._

 _Harry is different in this story, he's a little more bitter, sarcastic, slower to trust. More ambitious to some extent, but hopefully he has a somewhat humorous voice to. He still values friendship and loyalty, but also power and success._

 _I have some of the major plot lines lined out but a lot of it comes to me as I write, also the major plot won't happen until Harry is older since it would make no sense for him to be involved in it at age 11 lol. The first school years are about setting up characters, relationships, world building, minor plot lines, and hints and flashes into what will be the driving plot-line later on._

 _I'm not big on author notes so unless I think it's important this will be one of few in this story. And no I don't own Harry Potter and am not profiting from this in any way :)_

 _Hope you enjoy reading and I'm open to all kinds of reviews, and constructive criticism is encouraged. Thanks_

* * *

Chapter 1

Harry Potter had just finished re-organizing his secret stash in the loose floorboard of his cupboard when he heard his pig of a cousin stomping down the stairs above him. He shot what he liked to think of as his signature glare upward and let out a gusty sigh before muttering quietly to himself, "fucking spoiled shithead". Harry was feeling cranky today. Harry often felt cranky in the mornings and quite frankly didn't have much in his life to be happy about anyway, however, on this particular morning, he was extra irritable. His cousin Dudley's birthday always made Harry feel things he didn't want to feel. He liked to think that he had gotten used to his lot in life and that he wasn't the young kid who cried in his cupboard wondering why his family treated him like they did, when as far as they were concerned Dudley shat rainbows. He liked to tell himself that he was over that now, that he didn't need what other children got and that he would make his own way in life. On days like this though, when Dudley woke to a room full of presents and a day full of whatever the hell the prick was nagging for this year, he couldn't help but think of his own mostly unmentioned birthdays and a small part of him longed for a family who cared for him. Harry, however, likes to think that he does not need anyone and therefore does not appreciate that small part of him speaking out and thus gets mightily cranky on days such as this.

Harry's mood was slightly improving due to a fantasy involving Dudley choking on his birthday cake, when his contemplations were rudely interrupted by the banging on his cupboard door.

"Boy! Get up! We want a special breakfast for Dudley this morning."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia" If his aunt heard the slight sarcastic tinge to his reply, she didn't comment on it. The giraffe looking woman simply unlocked and opened the cupboard door and looked at Harry with the usual sourness as he climbed out and made his way to the kitchen. Dudley was already there poking and counting his presents and Harry did his best to ignore the simpering of his aunt and the whining of his cousin while he worked on breakfast and had another pleasant little fantasy, this time involving poison and crispy bacon. Harry tuned back into the room when he heard his name mentioned in that particular whiny tone of Dudleys that made Harry long for the sound of nails on a chalkboard, it would be an improvement.

"He can't come with us! That freak would ruin the whole day!" Harry felt his stomach sink somewhere to his toes. The last bloody thing he wanted was to be dragged to the zoo with Dudley and his equally brutish friend. The one highlight of Dudley's birthday was that he only really had to put up with the Dursleys for the morning and then they usually went out. Harry was usually sent off to the elderly neighbor, Mrs. Figg, who after spending an hour or so listening to stories about her cats, let him go out to hang with the boys.

"Why can't I go to Mrs. Figg?" Harry couldn't quite keep the plaintive tone out of his query and his uncle, who was now also in the kitchen, narrowed his eyes in annoyance. Though this may have little to do with his tone and more to do with the fact that his obese uncle was at best annoyed with his existence and at worse enraged by it and didn't like to be reminded of it with acts such as Harry talking, or come to think if it, breathing.

"Are you stupid boy! We just said that she can't have you since she broke her leg." Harry felt a brief flare of concern over this, as much as he didn't exactly like stories of cats, and quite frankly hated the old people smell of Mrs. Figgs house, he rather had a small soft spot for the old lady who fed him biscuits and tea. Harry shook the concern away and concentrated on the problem at hand.

"Well... I could stay here by myself then." That would be pretty great actually, he could maybe even sneak the boys over for a couple of hours to watch some tv.

"Oh, I bet you would like that, wouldn't you? who knows what kind of trouble you could get in, we might not have a house to come home to!" Harry did his best not to roll his eyes at his aunt. He takes better care of the house than any of them considering he was the one that did all the bloody chores in it.

"No! he can't come with us, he just can't!" Dudley was gearing up for a full-blown tantrum now, and as much as seeing an eleven-year-old walrus stamp and cry like a toddler usually disgusts Harry, he found himself silently cheering him on today and actually hoping he gets his way like he usually does.

"You could just lock the door and I could spend the day in the park" Harry tried to sound like he doesn't really want them to take him up on this suggestion. He figures that there was nothing the Dursleys liked more than Harry's misery, so painting an image of himself being stuck outside with nowhere to go for the day while they enjoy a trip to the zoo could only benefit his cause. His aunt and uncle conferred a little more with each other, but between Dudley's tantrum and the simple fact that they wanted him around almost as much as wanted to be around them which was to say, not at all, Harry soon found himself shut out of the house watching the Dursleys driving away and he couldn't help but grin.

* * *

Harry's morning crankiness gradually left him with each step he took away from number four private drive. He had a whole Dursley free day ahead of him and he planned to make the most of it. He made his way past the small park that was at bottom of the street and checked to see how much of his secret stash he had managed to stuff in his pockets before being unceremoniously pushed out of the house. With the way he was selling he would have enough to buy some uniform trousers for his new school in September to go along with the brand new shirt he had already bought. Harry was determined not to have to wear Dudley's old uniform which was not only big enough to fit at least three Harry's in them, but was also in the wrong color and his aunt was making sounds about dyeing them, Harry was trying to avoid being bullied thank you very much. Dudley had been teasing Harry about him going to Stonewall High for his first year of comp for months, Dudley himself was going to smeltings private school, as far as Harry was concerned Dudley could tease him all he liked on this topic, he couldn't be happier with the situation. Separate schools meant Dudley wouldn't be able to bully everyone into either ignoring Harry or bullying him themselves and Harry could stop dumbing himself down in class so as not to show up precious Dudley and he could start working on getting good grades. Harry can't wait to get away from the Dursleys, but he doesn't just want to get any old job at sixteen and escape, he wants some revenge, and becoming someone successful while Dudley probably ends up in jail sounds like some sweet vengeance to Harry. He's not entirely sure what he wants to do, but Harry figures that doing well in school is a good bloody start.

About 10 minutes from the park, Harry stopped his leisurely stroll and made his way up the walkway of a house that lay behind a garden that was almost overflowing with growing vegetables and herbs. Harry knew that this annoyed the other neighbors on the street to madness as it disrupted the flow of neatly cut grass of all the other front gardens of the street, but Harry thought it was nice to have something look a little different. Mrs. Thompson, who owned the house, had a major green thumb and hated buying food without knowing exactly where it came from and what exactly was in it, and thus she had used all available space in her back and front garden for her own produce. Harry often found himself on the other end of a lecture about preservatives and organic produce and other such things that Harry only barely pays attention to whenever he visits here, but this trait of Miss Thompson meant that her son, Connor, was one of his best customers so Harry didn't complain. Harry knocked on the well-kept front door and waited patiently, enjoying the earthy smell of the garden as he did so.

"Good morning Harry!" Miss. Thompson was relatively tall for a woman and Harry had to crane his neck back slightly and squint his eyes from the sun so he could see her.

"Good morning Miss. Thompson, Is Connor available please?" Harry had learned that being as polite and charming as possible to grown-ups made life easier in the long run, though he admits to himself that he sometimes fails in this endeavor if he is in a particularly unpleasant mood or if the person in question is a prick. Luckily Harry rather likes Miss. Thompson and thus doesn't find it as such a chore.

"Of course!, come in, come in, I'm busy out back at the moment, working on growing some green beans, do you like green beans Harry?, I harvested some tomato and cucumber today would you like some? You should really talk to your aunt about where she gets her vegetables, you know they put per-"

"Hi, Harry" Harry breathed a silent sigh of relief at Connors interruption, as much as he likes Miss. Thompson, she doesn't half go on about stuff. Stuff that quite frankly he couldn't care less about, Harry barely gets enough scraps from the Dursleys to keep hunger away as is so he's not going to start worrying about where that food comes from, if it tastes half decent and fills him up he's happy. Harry looked up at Connor who was leaning over the handrail of the stairs with a happy grin on his face and an excited air about him. "Wanna come up to my room for a bit?"

"Sure" Harry made his way up the stairs and into Connors room as Connor had a few words with his mum. It wasn't long before Connor rushed into his room and closed his bedroom door behind him before turning to Harry with an almost crazed look in his eye.

"What have you got?" Harry dug into his clothes pockets, silently thinking how at least Dudley's old oversized clothes meant he had big pockets, and pulled out a handful of chocolate bars and presented them on the bed with a little bit of a flourish.

"I have some Galaxy, Dairy Milk, chocolate buttons, Galaxy Caramel, and some Freddos" Harry dug into his other pocket for a moment knowing he had some stash that he bought with Connor in mind, once he found it, he pulled it out with a triumphant sound "And an Aero mint so you breath will smell minty instead of chocolatey"

Connor looked at the chocolate googly-eyed for a moment, he had one hell of a sweet tooth and since his mum never let him get any and Harry hadn't had a chance to come see him for a good two weeks, he was probably feeling a little desperate at this point.

"How much?"

"Pound a chocolate bar and 50p a Freddo"

"50p a Freddo!" Harry does admit that this is a bit extortionate, but Harry usually makes his money by selling in school, but now that summer is here most just go to the shop themselves and buy things for cheaper than Harry sells them, so Connor is his only avenue to getting them new trousers and he will be damned if he has to wear trousers the size of a parachute and smelling of dye. Besides, Harry thinks Connor is a bit of a knob.

"Take it or leave it" Harry made to pick the chocolate bars back up.

"Fine! Fine!, Jesus! give me 4 bars including the Aero and 3 Freddos" Sweet. Harry smirks a little. "Don't be so smug freak" Harry rolls his eyes at the unoriginal insult and simply takes the money that Connor hands him and picks up the few chocolate bars he has left and leaves the room without another word to the stupid twit.

* * *

After getting caught up in a twenty-minute conversation about green beans, Harry finally leaves Miss. Thompson's house two tomatoes, a cucumber and five pounds fifty richer. So he's feeling particularly smug and is munching on a tomato while also planning a way to get his aunt to send him into town in the next week so he can secretly pick up his spanking new trousers, when he runs into a group of older boys hanging not far from the corner shop.

"Oi! kid! What are you up to then? No good I bet" The boy was in his early teens, lanky, with a nose on the slightly too large side and a grin that Harry and many others would call cheeky.

"none of your damn business you chav!" Harry grinned rather cheekily himself as the group of three boys laughed. Harry had met the three boys about a year ago when he first started selling chocolate. He was just exiting the shop with a bagful of goodies when the boys called him over and asked him quite frankly why a scruffy boy like him who looked liked he hadn't eaten in days was doing buying a bunch of chocolate every week. When Harry told them he was selling it for a profit the boys were right tickled by it, saying that having that kind of forethought at his age suggested he was going to be a genius. Harry thought they had a rather low estimate of what qualified a genius but he wasn't going to argue with them on it. Harry started to stop and chat with them every week and they soon started asking him to tag along sometimes when they hung out and as someone who hadn't had any friends before Harry was rather pleased. He knew that a lot of the time the boys were humouring him since he was a couple years younger than them and his small stature, even among those his own age, probably didn't help things in that department but they were as close to friends he was going to get until he finally got to comp school and they were a good distraction for days like this.

"Chav! I'll have you know that this tracksuit brings all the girls calling thank you very much!" If an all black tracksuit with bright yellow strips on the side really does make women call him Harry has less of an understanding of girls than he thought he did, and he didn't think he had much of one to begin with. Elliot was Harry's favorite of the three, he was the one who seemed most invested in Harry and he still found Harry's little business venture humorous as proved by his next question asked with an amused smirk "you stoking back up then Harry?"

"Na, think I'm out of business for the summer now, no market for it" The boys had another chuckle about that and although that was what Harry was going for he can't help but be a bit annoyed by it as it is a little patronizing. The other boys were called Tony and Chubs. Tony was a little shorter than Elliot, had muddy brown hair, a body that was slightly muscular and laughed a lot more than Harry thought was necessary. Chubs was well...chubby, blond and actually rather quiet, Harry didn't actually know Chubs's real name, he has always kind of gone by that and Harry had never bothered to ask his given name.

"We're headed to Chubs's place to hang for a bit since his parents have pissed off somewhere or another, you in?" Elliot asked Harry.

"Sure" Harry was kind of hoping for some sort of invite or he really would have been stuck in the park by himself until the Dursley got home.

* * *

"What about Laura though...her nose is a little distracting but her tits man..." Tony sighed dramatically in what seems really fond remembrance. "the dreams I've had of those" Harry couldn't help but scrunch his nose a bit at this, he had been over Chubs's place for almost two hours now and doesn't know when talk turned to girls but wished mightily that it hadn't. His discomfort didn't go unnoticed it seems as Elliot, chuckling lightly, turned to him where he was sitting beside him on the sofa in the living room and ruffled Harry hair giving Harry's already unmanageable mop a rather wild look.

"I think our talk is a little mature for little Harry here" Elliot was grinning wide as he watched Harry try to pat down his hair and Harry started to feel some of this morning crankiness creeping up on him again.

"right… girls tits are the epitome of maturity" This made the three of them burst out laughing much to Harry's annoyance "What?!"

"epitome!" Tony gasped out.

"you talk like a grandpa" Chubs added rather redundantly in Harry's opinion.

"Christ, now who's being mature" Harry rolled his eyes at the lot of them though he had to work on keeping a small lip twitch from becoming a full grin. After they had stooped giggling like girls, well mostly, Tony was still chuckling a little but the rest of the boys were well used to his overlong laughs, Elliott turned to Harry again.

"Trust me Harry, in a few years you won't be scrunching your nose up at tits"

"Something else might get up though" Tony muttered with another bloody giggle, causing Harry to blush to the roots of his hair which in turn made the rest of them burst into laughter again.

"You shouldn't have got that one Harry!" Harry did his best not to answer, but he's had sexual lessons last year in school and has woken up some mornings with ...situations so he knows what their bloody talking about, though he's not saying that out loud to them, he would never live it down.

"whatever, can we just put something on the tv or something, it would be a miracle if any girl let any of you near them and their tits anyway" This brought out another round of raucous laughter and Harry let himself join in this time. Harry rather enjoyed insulting people who only laughed in response.

* * *

As much as Harry would have liked to stay at Chubs's place longer, or hell for life really, he had to get back to the park and look miserable for when the Dursley's arrived home, so he only stayed another hour before he made his way back rather despondently. He knew he would have to listen to Dudley brag about his birthday all night and though Harry really did not want to go with Dudley to the zoo, he thinks he might have liked to visit there in other circumstances, like maybe with the boys or something, it sounded pretty neat. He wasn't at the park for long, only enough time to finish his other tomato when he spotted the Dursley's car going past and Harry got up and walked back to private drive.

* * *

It turns out that Harry wasn't wrong about Dudley's bragging and by the time he was ordered to his cupboard for the night he really wanted to punch Dudley in his pig face. Though heaven knows that wouldn't have tuned out well, considering Dudley's three times the size of Harry and the reaction he'd get from his aunt and uncle if he dared touch their precious Ickle Dudleykins doesn't bare thinking about. Harry lay in his cupboard thinking about how different his birthday is going to be in a just over a week compared to Dudleys and he fantasized about kicking Dudleys arse before finally succumbing to sleep.

* * *

Harry was again proven right when his birthday did come round and wasn't even acknowledged by the Dursleys at all. It was clear that Dudley knew it was his birthday as he kept sending Harry smug little looks over breakfast while he again told tales of his birthday trip to the zoo. Harry wasn't surprised by the Dursleys behavior, however, that didn't stop him from wanting to wallop Dudley. The fat shit. Harry was enjoying his slice of toast and egg whilst secretly salivating over the bacon Dudley was shoving in his gob when the mail came, and just like every morning…

"Boy, get the mail" Shoving the last of his toast in his mouth knowing that once he's left the table he won't be welcomed back to it, Harry made his way to the front door. Picking the letters up he noticed that the one on top had a weird texture to it which made him stop and take a closer look at it and to his immense shock noticed it was addressed to him. The letter was for him! It was on some fancy looking paper and his name was written on it in posh looking green ink. Not just his name either, but it said the cupboard under the stairs! Someone knew he lived in a cupboard. Harry has never told anyone about that, and he knows the Dursleys bloody well haven't either.

"Boy! What's taking so long? Are you so dumb you got lost on the way to the front door?" Harry rolled his eyes at his Uncles chortling at his little joke and quickly slipped the letter addressed to him into his cupboard on his way back to the kitchen and handed the mail over as if nothing was amiss. He was about to casually walk back to his cupboard when his aunt grabbed him by the arm.

"where do you think you're going? Your Aunt Marge is coming over in a couple of days and I want the house spotless" She then, much to Harrys frustration, handed over a long list of chores to be completed by the end of the day and Harry had no choice but to leave the letter until later. Throughout the morning he contemplated the contents of the letter, but Harry realized that he was probably being a little bit dopey and the letter is probably not important at all and he would be mighty disappointed if he got his hopes up about it, so he cleared his mind and got back to work. If his mind still flashed with curiosity throughout the day that was only natural and could not be helped.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1.

We await your owl by no later than August 14th.

Yours Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

Harry stared at the letter in disbelief and not a small amount of disappointment. He wasn't sure what he was expecting really, but a letter addressed to him was such a foreign concept that he's ashamed to say his imagination ran a little wild, he even had the thought that maybe an estranged relative was trying to reach out. His imagination, however, was obviously not as wild as whoever was playing this trick on him. Wizarding school? Who the bloody hell come up with that? After spending all day slaving away and looking forward to this letter he finds its a load of bollocks. Harry started to get rather pissed actually, addressing it to the cupboard under the stairs seems like someone taking the mick now that he thinks about it.

Harry sat in the cupboard staring at the letter in his hand whilst his anger grew. It even includes a bloody ridiculous list of items to get with book names and everything!

After a time, though if asked Harry couldn't say how long, another emotion began to fight for dominance with his anger, pure bloody confusion. It makes no sense, he knew nobody capable of this level of imagination or penchant for pranking and as pranks go… what did they get out of this? Maybe someone expects him to go chasing after owls, though where he'd find one of those he hasn't a clue considering he doesn't think he's ever seen one. Harry decides to give up on his musings and just ignore it, whatever someone wants from this, they won't be getting it that's for sure.

* * *

Harry woke the next morning just like every other, and if there was a little bit more bitterness to his usual morning crankiness Harry wasn't going to give the letter hoax the satisfaction of admitting it. Seeing the letter on the cupboard floor he contemplated how to get rid of it, maybe even burning the blasted thing, but in the end, he decided to shove it where he used to keep his stash of chocolate, though he couldn't say why that was and choose not to think about it further.

Breakfast was an extra trial that morning, Harry managed to run his mouth a little to his uncle and thus was sent out of the kitchen after preparing breakfast with not so much as a piece of toast. At least the order of 'get out of my sight!' meant he could escape for the rest of the day.

* * *

Harry might have stomped his way to the park if it wasn't for the fact that he'd look like a pillock, as it was he walked with a dark scowl on his face to match his ever darkening mood. He was halfway there when he noticed it. An Owl. There was an owl on the tree. There was an owl. on the tree. not 10 yards in front of him. Harry stopped and stared. Then he stared some more. The owl stared back. That was a suspicious coincidence. Maybe he just hadn't taken note of an owl before, but now that the letter mentioned it he noticed it. That didn't sound really right to Harry but he shrugged and made his way to the park anyway. This time with less of a scowling expression and more of a suspicious confused one, which also reflected his new mood. He was sat on the swings when he heard it. Flapping. As in wings flapping. Harry slowly swiveled his head around and spotted the Owl staring at him from his new perch on the top of the slide. Freaky. Harry decided he was being silly and he was just going to ignore it and sit on the swing. He wasn't going to think of the beady eyes on his back. Harry casually looked around and just by accident he swears, notices that the bird is still there. Staring. Harry then decided that the park is particularly boring that day and maybe he will take a walk.

Harry made his way further up the street, but he hadn't gotten all that far when he heard the flapping again. He picked up his pace to a fast walk and peeked over his shoulder to see the owl perched on a tree not far back behind him. Picking up his pace again which put him in a slight jog, Harry was just starting to get confident that the owl had given up when he heard the dreaded bloody flapping again. At this point, Harry promptly freaked the fuck out and started running like his life depended on it. He ran across the road and started to quickly make his way back to the park. He was just passing the park again when he chanced another look and saw the owl flying after him, Harry let out a screech and somehow managed to pick up the pace even further and thus made it back to the Dursleys in record time. He shut the front door behind him and ran into his cupboard and shut that door for good measure too.

Harry sat on his sleeping pallet for a few minutes catching his breath with his eyes wide and hands shaking. "What the bloody fuck was wrong with that bird." Harry had almost fully calmed down after a few more moments of contemplating the roof of his cupboard when he snorted. Then he started to giggle. He had just ran up and down the street like a banshee because of a bloody owl! Imagine what that must have looked like to the neighbors, him running as fast as he could screeching, while a pretty little brown owl flew calmly behind him. The Dursleys would have a field day with the freaky taunts if this story got back to them.

He didn't know how long he had been lying there in amusement before he heard the Dursleys leave the house for some reason or another. They must not have known he had come back and thus Harry had the place to himself and his cupboard was unlocked. The day was looking up. He decided he'd grab something to eat from the kitchen and then watch some tv. He was even tempted to have a go at Dudley's new computer, but was scared he didn't know enough about them to hide his use so he decided it wouldn't be worth the fuss of his aunt and uncle finding out about that.

* * *

He had just settled down with a sandwich and some lousy daytime tv when an urge came over him. He put the sandwich down and took a peek out of the front window. The owl was perched on the small tree in the front garden. He sat back down on the settee, sandwich forgotten for the moment. Harry was a rather practical boy, but what if...there had been some rather odd occurrences in his life, or as his aunt and uncle called them his freakish episodes. If being a freak meant having magic Harry would be well up for that. It's stupid contemplating this, magic and wizardry can't be real, and surely if it was and there was a whole bloody school for it he would have heard of it. But what if. In the end what decided it for Harry was the simple fact that he was fed up with thinking about it. Without further thought, he went to his cupboard and pulled the letter out and made a trip to the kitchen for some paper and a pen. He then wrote a simple, short letter that accidentally ended up slightly passive aggressive.

Dear whoever this is

If magic is real, send proof.

Thanks,

Harry Potter

Harry then took a rubber band he had found in a kitchen drawer and made his way outside. It was when he was looking at the Owl perched on the tree that he had some second thoughts because of the absolute ridiculousness of what he was doing, but he powered on anyway. He strolled up to the rather pretty looking owl that not that long ago had scared the shit out of him and was just thinking about climbing the tree when it flew down to a lower branch and held out its leg. "huh...smart and pretty aren't you, I'm sorry I ran away from you screaming, at the time you seemed rather terrifying" Harry could swear the Owl was silently judging him with his eyes so he quickly attached his letter to the owls leg with the band and almost as fast as he could blink the owl was flying off. Giving both a figurative and an actual shrug, Harry went back inside to finish his sandwich determined not to spend any more time thinking about it.

* * *

A few days later and Harry had been almost entirely successful in not thinking about what he was now calling the letter incident. The exception being when his Aunt had a bit of a go at him for being freaky after she had gossiped with the neighbor and heard about his minor escapade with the chasing owl. She seemed rather adamant he should stay away from owls, which seemed like an odd thing to concentrate her lecture on since the story she had heard was of him running _away_ from the owl after all.

It was early afternoon and Harry was wondering if he could get away with getting out of the house and meeting up with boys for a second day running when there was a knock on the door. Harry didn't know what it was about that knock that grabbed his attention, but it did. It was hardly a strange occurrence to have someone at the door and the chances of it being anything to do with him was slim to none as far as Harry was concerned, however, for some explicable reason Harry found his whole being and attention captivated by that knock. He found himself moving from his place by the kitchen sink to the kitchen doorway without a conscious thought, and he then proceeded to watch his aunt answer the front door with great interest.

At first Harry couldn't see much of anything due to his aunt and the door, however, he did notice a flash of green above his aunts head as if someone was wearing a pointed green hat. Before Harry had a chance to do anything but blink at the weirdness of that, his aunt let out a horrified wail and moved quickly, pulling whoever was beyond the door into the room with a hand on the arm and slamming the front door closed.

"NO! No, no, your kind is not welcome here! We don't want anything to do with your ...your...freakishness, look at you! What will the neighbors think!" Harry wasn't really paying attention to his aunts angry stuttering, he was too busy gaping at the woman in the hallway in pure bewilderment. She was rather tall and relatively old looking, but it wasn't her face that had captured Harry's attention but what she was wearing. Firstly it was green, moss green, and a lot of it. Draped around what looked like a very old-fashioned green dress was a lined darker green fabric cloak, like something that little red riding hood would wear, but you know...green. Harry's eyes soon traveled back to the hat, the pointed green hat…like something a wiz- Harry let out an involuntary gasp, and the woman who had been looking at his aunt with a regal but rather outraged look on her face, turned her attention to him.

She seemed to size him up a little as his aunt carried on her raving. Harry knew what she would see, too small, too skinny, too big clothes, too much wild hair, and too much round glasses behind which his eyes were as wide as saucers, and come to think of it his mouth was wide and gaping as well. In other circumstances, Harry might have been worried about what impression she was getting from him, but as it stood he was too busy dealing with the realization and hope that was building inside him. He was starting to think that maybe the letter wasn't a hoax after all. It was a ridiculous notion, but if magic was real and Harry could do it, he was going to shit a brick in happiness.

The woman must have been done sizing him up because she interrupted his aunts still going on tirade and spoke with a rather severe Scottish accent that seemed to slice through the room and straight through Harrys body.

"Hello Mr. Potter, I am Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I believe you required some proof."

"now you stop right there...I...We d-don't won't any of this...If we have to house and feed that boy there will be no ma-...stuff going on here!" His aunt was spitting mad, each word seemed to be forced out of her rigid lips and her eyes were narrowed in anger and a surprising amount of hatred. He had been on the receiving end of his aunt ire on an almost daily basis, but he sensed something a little different about the anger he was witnessing now, and it wasn't until McGonagall turned back to his aunt to answer her that Harry realised what that was, fear, his aunt was enraged by McGonagalls presence but she was also afraid of her.

"Miss Dursley, as you well know, you can not prevent from receiving a magical education, I can ensure you that he will not be performing any magic he learns at school in your residence as according to wizarding law, again, as you well know. Now, if you don't mind, I need to have a talk with Mr. Potter as it seems that someone has been remiss in informing him of his heritage and future." With that, McGonagall strode into the living room leaving his aunt spluttering in the hallway and Harry much to his chagrin still gaping in the kitchen doorway.

"If you could join me " Harry heard her polite call from the living room, and after finally closing his now rather dry mouth he quickly made his way there without another look at his aunt.

McGonagall had seemed to make her self at home and was sitting straight-backed on the beige sofa. Harry, not entirely sure what to do in this situation, simply sat on the far end of the sofa next to her and turned to look at the woman with what he hoped was a less dumb expression than what he wore in the hallway.

"Firstly I would like to apologize, If we had known that you were unaware of magic, we would have treated you the way we treat children who have mugg- non magical parents and either I or another professor would have visited personally to deliver your acceptance letter and to explain things to you and your family" Another Professor, because there was a school for magic, because they are saying that that is an actual thing. Some of the growing skepticism must have shown on his face because McGonagall sighed.

"Alright, let's get this part done out of the way shall we" She then pulled out a stick which Harry's brain was currently refusing to call what he suspected it to be, and swished it at the coffee table which promptly turned into a bloody pig! A pig! Harry jumped off of the settee and started to gape incredulously yet again.

"Fucking hell!" That was magic. She turned the normal, boring looking wooden coffee table until a rather large ugly pig. Harry poked the pig a little. It felt like a pig as well.

"Right, well, I will ignore your crude language considering the circumstances. As you can see magic is very much real and soon you will be entrenched in a world where magic is the norm and you will learn to perform magic yourself" Harry was listening with only half an ear as the rest of him was still looking and poking the pig. She must have noticed his preoccupation as she sighed again and did another swish with her wand (wand!)and the pig turned back to a coffee table.

"Sit down, Mr. Potter, I have much to go over and not much time to do so" After a few heavy blinks, Harry sat. With a promise to himself that he could freak the hell out later when he was alone, he took a calming breath and pulled his mind back from the crazed running commentary that consisted mainly of 'Magic!'.

"I'm capable of magic?" McGonagall scrutinized him a little and seemed a little pleased to see he had calmed himself and gave him a small nod of approval.

"That's correct, you may have noticed a few instances as you were growing up, magical children are prone to accidental magic." There were a few he could think of, though he wished he had managed to turn Dudley into an actual pig, people may not have even noticed if he had.

"ye, there were a few, it explains why the Dursleys blamed me for all sorts of weird shi-crap to if they knew about magic" Her face pursed in displeasure at this.

"yes, I have heard Petunia displayed a dislike of magic from the moment your mother received her acceptance to Hogwarts"

"My mother? She had magic too?" McGonagall's face softened at this.

"Yes, I taught both your mother and father in school and they later become good friends of mine, you look very much like your father Harry," Harry didn't know what to feel about his parents. When he was younger he knew he used to imagine what they would be like and get upset at the fact that he would never really know, but it has been a while since he had thoughts like that, and it's hard to miss things you don't remember having. Even so, hearing about his parents made his eyes burn and made him extremely uncomfortable and he wanted to change topics, but his curiosity in the matter won out a little.

"How is it that my mom had magic but Aunt Petunia doesn't?"

"Ah, your mother was muggle-born, meaning that neither her parents or anyone else in the family had magic, no one knows how muggle-borns get their magic, though there is much debate on the matter"

"Was my dad a muggle-thingi to?"

"Muggleborn, and no, your dad was part of a prominent pure-blood family" she hesitated and seemed uncomfortable about the topic "you will learn more on that in time." She then pulled out a small thin book from her pocket, that Harry suspected should not have fitted in there without the aid of some cool as shit magic. "Here, this gives you some information on the magical world and will help you to acclimatize a little for when you arrive at Hogwarts. I suggest you read the chapter on pure-blood hereditary affinities thoroughly as it does pertain to you, you will be given special classes on this once you arrive at Hogwarts so don't worry if you don't understand some aspects of that" He briefly studied the book she had handed to him, it seemed awfully thin to be thought to give enough information on a whole new world if you asked Harry, but he was excited to read it regardless.

"Where is Hogwarts exactly?" It would be very helpful to know where the hell he was supposed to be showing up come September.

"Ah, yes, Hogwarts is a very prestigious boarding school in Scotland you will catch a train from London to get there which I will give details to you about at a later time. At Hogwarts itself you will be taught a range of branches of magic, I have little doubt that you will enjoy your time there greatly." He has little doubt about that too, he gets to live away from the Dursleys in a school where the work you have to do is magic! "please be aware that until you are of age you will not be permitted to do any magic outside of school" Bummer. "Now, I have found it easier in these cases for you to simply ask any urgent questions that have come to mind, you will have a chance to learn more when we meet for your shopping trip at a later date"

"When can I get a wand?" Harry stared a little hungrily at the wand he could see peeking out of McGonagall's side pocket. McGonagall's lip twitched and Harry got the impression that this question was a rather popular one.

"You will get your wand along with all your other school supplies during our shopping trip, I have one scheduled for this coming Wednesday or I have one the following wee-"

"Wednesday is fine." The sooner the better as far as Harry was concerned.

"Very well, any other questions?"

"What's with the owls?"

"Owls are the way we communicate via letters" So they will be a common thing then, Harry seriously hopes that no one finds out about his first interaction with one.

"Wouldn't phones be quicker?"

"There is no electricity in the wizarding world, it tends to not react well with magic" What. He couldn't imagine that. Harry sat quietly for a few moments trying to imagine what the wizarding world could be like. He was sure that there were a million things he needed and wanted to know, but for the life of him, he couldn't think of any at the moment, much to his great annoyance.

"You need not learn everything right now Mr. Potter, I find that experiencing the wizarding world is the best way to learn about it than any other" Harry would rather know what he was getting into if he was honest, but experiencing magic sounded pretty darn epic to him so he pushed away his worries and concentrated on the excited feelings he had. McGonagall stood up from the settee. "I will arrive here at half past nine Wednesday morning to take you to Diagon Alley for your supplies." And with that, she made her way to the hall and to the door. Harry was going to leave it there when something inside him forced him to run after her.

"Miss McGonagall?"

"Professor McGonagall Mr. Potter" She corrected a little sternly though not unkindly.

"If my parents were wizards, how did they really die?" McGonagall didn't really react much to his query unless you counted a moment of frigidness. She seemed to weigh her words carefully before answering and Harry got the impression that there was a lot she was leaving out.

"Around the time you were born, the wizarding world was in the height of a civil war, your parents fought in that war and died during one of the final battles. They are considered heroes for their efforts, your father especially." She seemed to hesitate again before she moved away from the door and back to where Harry was standing by the living room doorway "Harry...no matter what you may hear about the decisions your parents made" At this Harry was sure her eyes flicked down to his scruffy hand-me-down clothes " know that they had their reasons, and above all else, they loved you very much" She then quickly turned and made her exit which Harry was grateful for, since he didn't want to think about the expression that was on his face at that moment, never mind have anyone else see it. Part of him wished McGonagall had never said that, so he could have avoided the complicated emotions he was now feeling, but a bigger part was glad, glad to know that at one point he was loved by family.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Harry was feeling rather smug about his lot in life. He's had a shit time of it up until now, but he thought things were definitely starting to look up. Here he is, sitting on his own bed, in his own bedroom, reading a book about a magical community that he will soon become a part of. Harry let a pleased smirk break out onto his face as he heard yet another item hit the wall in the bedroom across from his. Dudley was not pleased about Harry getting his toy room as his new bedroom that was for sure, but it seems his aunt and uncle are rather fearful of what might happen if the wizards find out how they have been treating him, and so have given him this as a bribe and to make sure they don't find out about his cupboard. Personally, Harry doesn't think they would care all that much since they have left him to his own devices up until this point, but he's smart enough not to point that out.

Although Harry couldn't be more excited about his first foray into the magical world, which is happening the next day, the past five days had been a roller coaster of phases of excited wonder and no small amount of frustration. He has read the book Professor McGonagall gave him numerous times and he finds it rather lacking. It gives a little information on Hogwarts itself, some on the different magical branches, a little on the British magical places, and three pages of what is essentially a dictionary of some common magical phrases and items he is likely to come across in his first days in the magical world. Each chapter seems to hold only the bare basics and creates more questions than it answers.

He made sure to heed to McGonagalls' advice and read the pure-blood hereditary affinities chapter carefully, though calling it a chapter is pushing it considering it is only a few paragraphs long. What Harry essentially took from it was that some pure-blood family lines carry a specific magical affinity, the firstborn of any wizard or witch who carries that trait will also have the affinity. Since Harry was told to read that chapter carefully specifically, he guesses that the Potter family had an affinity and that his dad carried it so as his firstborn so does Harry. What that affinity is though he hasn't the foggiest, in fact, he doesn't really know what a magical affinity even is or means, since the book doesn't bother to explain or provide examples. Hence the periods of frustration. Harry hoped that McGonagall would provide more insights tomorrow, but he is not going to count on it and plans on getting his hand on the information himself, the book mentioned that the bookstore in Diagon Alley is one of the best stoked in Britain.

Harry wished he could talk to someone about everything, even if only to vent, but he knows from the book that blabbing about the magical world to people without magic (muggles Harry reminds himself) is a big no-no. There seems to be leniency only for parents and siblings but everyone else is supposed to be kept in the dark. He only really has Elliot and the boys anyway, and he can imagine how they would react if he started sprouting stories of magic.

* * *

Harry settled down to bed at seven that night in the hopes of falling asleep so that the morning would come quicker. He ended up spending hours lying there day-dreaming about the possibilities of the next day, and when he finally did fall asleep, it was with a small smile on his face.

* * *

Harry practically bounced out of bed the next morning. He went about his usual morning routine with an excited grin and more enthusiasm than he has ever remembered having. He thinks he may have even walked down the stairs with an actual pep in his step. Not even the Dursleys extra glares and pointed remarks had any effect on his mood, even when they forced him to remake breakfast even though he knew for a fact that the first lot was perfectly fine. They could be as petty as they wanted, it doesn't change the fact that he is going to a magical shopping street today, to buy magical things, for his magical school, that he will be going to for a magical Dursley free time. From September onwards he would only have to see the Dursleys for six weeks of the year. It took everything within Harry not to give them the finger and shout 'Up yours suckers!', but he liked to think he was more mature than that. Besides, he's still stuck with them for another few weeks after today and he would like to avoid as much trouble as he can, he can imagine that they are already feeling cantankerous enough after giving him the spare bedroom. Best not to push it. He will just have to limit himself to only mentally sticking his finger up to them. Stupid evil twits that they are.

If anyone asked Harry, he would say he spent the last half hour before McGonagall was due to arrive, calmly sitting in his room reading. In actuality he stood by the front door, his body almost vibrating in exhilaration with an almost manic gleam in his eyes. It wasn't until he roughly pulled the front door open before the first knock was even finished sounding out, that Harry had the thought that he should have played it a little cooler. Oh well. McGonagall was wearing an almost identical outfit to when he last saw her, and she looked just as imposing and strange as he remembered. He gave her a gleeful smile due to his excitement and shot out of the house before she had the chance to say anything. He wasn't really paying attention to where he was going and smacked into someone who must have been standing just behind McGonagall.

"Shit!" Harry had hit whoever it was with a fair bit of force and they both went down to the ground, though luckily for Harry he landed on top of them so only suffered from a jab in the stomach from an errant elbow. Not so lucky for the other guy though.

"Ow! Get off!" Well, not a guy apparently, but a girl.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Harry quickly scrambled off of her and belatedly noted that there were two others with McGonagall.

"Are you ok Miss Granger?" McGonagall offered a hand to help the girl he had smooshed to the ground up, and Harry realized, a little sheepishly, that he probably should have done that.

"Yes, I'm fine thank you, just a little bruised" The girl, Miss. Granger apparently, shot him a glare that said 'no thanks to you'. She looked to be his age, had big frizzy hair and big front teeth that Harry's eyes seemed to be inadvertently drawn to.

"Right, Mr. Potter, the girl you just charged into is Hermione Granger, and this," At that she pointed to the boy who up until this point had been standing to the side with an amused look on his face. "...is Justin Finch-Fletchley, they will be your year mates and are joining us on our trip today" Justin was dressed in rather expensive looking clothes, was relatively tall for his age, had mud brown hair, and squinty eyes.

"umm, nice to meet you both" Great first impression he must have made. He gave them both a sheepish smile and got a nod from Justin and a less angry look from Hermione in reply. McGonagall, rather annoyingly in Harry's opinion, clapped her hands together once to get all of their attention.

"No time to dawdle, we need to catch the next train into London, Do you have your letter, Mr. Potter?" He dug out his letter from his pocket and held it up in reply. "Good, I have your key for your Gringotts vault and we will make a stop there first" Money. Harry was so excited about today he hadn't put a thought to how he was going to pay for all of the things he needed to buy, or in fact about where he would even get the wizarding money he had read about.

"My vault?" McGonagall had already started leading them down the street, so she turned back to look at him.

"Sorry Mr. Potter, yes, your parents left you all their possessions of course," she shot a look at the other two who were also listening avidly to this. "I will ask one of the goblins to explain this further to you when you go to make a withdrawal" Harry nodded absently in reply, mind busy running through this new information. He had hoped to buy a few extra things as well as the required items on the Hogwarts list, especially books, and now he worried he would have to be frugal. Harry could kick himself for not thinking about this before now, what a bloody idiot, all this time thinking about going shopping and not one bloody thought was spent on how he was going to be buy anything with the meagre fifteen odd pounds he had to his name. Hopefully, his parents had left him a fair bit, since he figured he would have to be buying new items every year. The group continued on down the street.

"If you have a vault, does that mean you parents were wizards?" Harry looked up at Justin who was eyeing his clothes disdainfully. Harry really hoped he had enough money for at least a partial new wardrobe.

"Ye, both of them were wizards."

"Were?" This came from Hermione who had picked up her pace a little so that she was walking beside Justin and himself. Harry thought that it was a rather rude question, and judging by Justin's faint wince he thought so too.

"yes… their dead" At least she looked a little sheepish now.

"You grew up with uh... muggles then?" Justin had obviously read the terms in that blasted book too then.

"Ye, my aunt and uncle" Harry couldn't help the little sneer that came across his face when mentioning them.

"Ah, so your parents were Muggle-borns," Hermione said this as if it was some feat that she had figured it out. Harry found himself grateful that McGonagall hadn't gone into detail about his parents' vault after all as these two seem too nosy for comfort, he wasn't used to people being interested in him like this and he found that he didn't really like it.

"My mum was, my dad was a pure-blood" Hermione's eyes widened at his.

"Oh! Do Potters have an affinity then? If so, what is it? Are you a first-born?" Hermione fired the questions rapidly and rather over-enthusiastically in Harry's opinion. At least Justin looked a little annoyed with Hermione too judging by the frown he sent her way, but he also seemed interested in Harry's answer. Not that Harry had much of one to give.

"uh...I think so" We had reached the train station by this point so McGonagall stopped, turned around and cleared her throat.

"The Potters' do, in fact, have a family line affinity that Potter does now carry. He will learn more of this in time, now, come along." Well at least Harry knows for sure he has an affinity now. Whatever that bloody is.

* * *

Luckily, talk on the train turned away from Harry and they all started speculating about Diagon Alley and Hogwarts. Unluckily, Harry's first experience of his year mates had proven to be a bit of a letdown. Harry tried to be open-minded, but by the end of the train ride, he had the opinion that they were both shitheads. Just different kinds of shitheads. Hermione was a know-it-all who didn't like to think of anyone else knowing more than her, and she also talked about everything she bloody well knows none-fucking stop, Justin and he had to fight to get a word in edgewise. Justin was a snob, from what Harry could glean his parents were rather well off and he liked to tell people this. Harry figured he wouldn't be too bad if it wasn't for the down the nose looks he kept giving Harry because of what he was wearing, but Harry was sick of being on the receiving end of them. He was aware that he was dressed like a hobo thank you very much, he needn't be reminded by that pillock.

After getting off the train they only had to walk for a short while before McGonagall led them into a rather dingy looking pub called the Leaky Cauldron. As the first proper wizarding place Harry had seen, it left a lot be desired. Dim lighting, a lot of dark wood, and the Tudor style made it feel rather oppressive. After looking a little longer though, Harry changed his mind. It was the little things. Like how in the far corner there were three glasses seemingly floating their own way to behind the bar as a rather bored looking woman waved her wand behind them, and how a rag seemed to be moving and rubbing a table clean by itself. It was also how he witnessed a man pointing his wand at the dying fire at the far end of the pub making the fire roar heartily once more. It was these things that made Harry decide that the pub was amazing after all. That in fact, the tall ceilings and Tudor aesthetic made it look like something from a medieval film, which was epic. After taking a good second look, he also decided that the dim lighting and dark wood he initially didn't like, gave the room a welcoming and warm feel. Harry grinned in happiness and turned to his two companions. Justin didn't seem all that impressed judging by his expression. Hermione, however, was looking around in fascination which warmed Harry's opinion of her a little. They didn't have too long to absorb the place before McGonagall was herding them out the back with a nod to the man behind the bar. They ended up in a small outdoor area that was littered with old used bottles and rubbish.

"Right then, we have a lot to do today, so we won't be spending more time in each shop than necessary, perhaps you can have your guardians bring you for another visit at a later date" Fat chance in Harry's case. "As it is we may need to split responsibilities a little to make sure we get everything done" With that said, McGonagall turned to face a brick wall of the back lot. Harry shared confused glances with Justin and Hermione, wondering what the hell she was up to. She then pulled out her wand from somewhere in her robes and tapped a sequence onto the bricks. In reaction, the bricks started moving and sliding until a neat archway appeared which McGonagall quickly herded the three of us through who by that point were all gaping and wide-eyed. Diagon Alley was a thousand times better than what Harry had imagined. It was narrow, busy, colorful and strange, but above all of that, it was magical. His eyes darted every which way and Harry found himself bouncing on the tips of his toes in excitement. It smelled weirdly spicy or herbaly considering it is essentially an alley, Harry rather liked the scent. Each shop seemed a different shape, size and color to the next and the things in their windows seemed so peculiar to him, even more so when he thought about how soon those things would be the norm. Most people walked around in robes like McGonagall, and some were performing magic with a casual air. Harry loved it.

It seemed like it was only seconds, but was probably closer to minutes, when they came to the end of the north-west part of the alley and Harry found himself in front of a narrow, long, lopsided, and grand looking building.

"In we go" Shepperderd again by McGonagall, the four of them made their way inside. Marble walls, floors and columns, huge shining chandeliers, and gold accents made the room scream opulence. Harry would no doubt have been mesmerised by it if it weren't for the fact that his eyes were too busy being glued to the goblins roaming and working around the room. Harry had read about the goblins, the introduction book sort of warns the reader of the magical creatures that they were likely to come across, but Harry still found himself almost frozen in shock at the strange looking things. That was until he felt a hard jab to his side.

"You shouldn't stare, it's rude" Getting a rude lesson from little-miss-talk-your-ear-off was a bit ironic, and Harry may have taken an exception to it if it weren't for the fact that she was right. Humans probably looked just as strange to goblins as goblins look to humans right?

"You know, my father works in a bank like this" Harry seriously doubts that Justin's father's bank is anywhere near similar to this. Harry had the strong urge to hit him upside the head. They made their way to one of the tellers. Who was a goblin. Harry was still struggling with getting his mind around that.

"Good morning, I have a student here who would like to make a withdrawal from his vault," McGonogall dug through a pocket and produced a gold ornate looking key and gave it to the goblin. "The name is Mr. Harry James Potter, currently the only holder of the Potter family-line affinity" And will be the only bloody one for many years thank you, since he would have to have a kid for there to be another. "He has only recently been introduced to the wizarding world and I would ask he be appraised on the contents of his vault." The goblin looked over at Harry with quite frankly scary looking black eyes before calling out behind him for another goblin.

"Griphook will see to this" Turns out that goblins are rather squeaky. McGonagall turned to Harry.

"Right Harry, you go along with Griphook, while I take Justin and Hermione to get their potion supplies and telescope, ill get yours for you too and you can pay me back later, this way we will save some time" In truth Harry was a little wary about going alone, but suspected that McGonagall was attempting to give him some privacy and he wasn't about to look like a baby and ask her to stay with him.

"Ok" The three turned to exit the bank while Harry turned to follow Griphook. The goblin. Still weird.

* * *

Harry enjoyed the cart ride down to the vaults tremendously, his hair was no doubt a wild nest but he thought it was well worth it. Griphook turned to look at Harry with the air of someone who would rather be doing something else.

"Mr. Potter, this is the vault that was left to you by your parents, it includes the Potter family fortune and any money both your parents made and saved before they died. The exact amount in the vault is two point five million galleons, three hundred and four Sickles and sixty-two Knuts, if you want to exchange some galleons into sickles and knuts you can do so on the main floor of the bank." That sounded like a lot.

"umm, what is that in... muggle money?"

"The current exchange is five pounds a Galleon, meaning you have over twelve and a half million pounds. You can exchange money to muggle money, or vise versa on the main floor." Harry suspected his mouth was doing that god awful gaping again. It was starting to become a habit. "As you are under age, any big withdrawals will have to be approved either by a guardian or a goblin committee and has to be proved to be a good investment" Harry is mother fucking rich! "The way wizarding money works is twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle and seven Sickles to a Galleon." Oh, the possibilities! To think he was saving a few quid to pay for some trousers only a few weeks ago! Wait a second.

"Could my muggle guardians take money out then?" There is no way in hell that the Dursleys are getting their grubby hands on his money.

"Usually they would if they wished, but since you have a magical guardian listed they do not have the right"

"I have a magical guardian?"

"Sirius Black is listed as your guardian, and as he was made so through the traditional practices, he still remains so, despite his current...status" Harry narrowed his eyes at the goblin a little.

"Status?"

"He is in Azkaban," Griphook said this as if it should mean something to Harry.

"Azkaban..." Griphook let out a gusty sigh.

"Wizard prison, Mr. Potter, now if you will just move to the side so I can open your vault, you can withdraw your money and I can finally be on my way, Goblins are busy creatures you know"

* * *

Harry didn't have nearly as much fun on the ride back from the vaults as he did on the way there, his mind was too preoccupied to take as much notice. He had withdrawn the maximum amount that he could without that special permission and knew that was probably a major overkill, but since he didn't know when he would next get the chance to visit there he decided he would get all that he could. When he got outside the bank and met up with McGonagall and the others, he didn't know what face he was making, but it must have been notable as Justin took one look at him and his eyebrows shot up his forehead.

"Good news then?" He had just found out he was god-damned loaded, so yes, Harry had just gotten very good news. In reply Harry simply nodded his head, not wanting to brag...Ok, maybe he did want to brag a little and Justin wouldn't be able to judge considering he has done enough of that throughout the morning himself. He refrained however and felt rather proud of himself for it.

It was after McGonagall had handed him the items promised and he had given the money he owed back to her that he caught sight of his reflection in a shop window and let out a small yelp. To say his hair looked wild was an understatement. He looked like he had an afro! A messy afro! No wonder Hermione and Justin had been sending him those amused glances, they could have bloody told him. McGonagall cleared her throat in what Harry suspiciously thought of as a disguise for her own amusement and said something that made him forget about his hair altogether.

"Time to get your wands I think" This day was just awesome.

* * *

Harry left Ollivanders with no small amount of relief and in the possession of a holly wand with a phoenix feather. Hermione and Justin, who got their wands before Harry, took about fifteen minutes combined to get theirs, Harry took over twice that long and must have gone through a big percentage of the wands in store before finding the right one, and there was a whole lot of wands in that store that's for sure. Harry had started to panic and think that maybe he wasn't magical after all when Ollivander final handed him the holly wand. The moment he held it, his whole being felt like it was lit up from within. Harry didn't think he would ever forget that feeling, the first time he felt the magic within himself.

"We need to hurry now if we want to get all of you measured for your robes in time for them to be ready today, while their being made we can get your books and if we hurry, we may have some time for you to visit sugarplum's sweetshop...oh! Do any of you want a pet?" Harry would really rather like a pet actually, but he's not sure he could get away with it with the Dursleys. An owl is tempting, now that he feels like he's gotten over his moment of fear of them anyway. That brown one was pretty smart...and he could send letters to...people if he got one. They are awfully cool looking. Harry wasn't a huge fan of cats thanks to Miss. Figg's damn right obsession with the arrogant sods and he doesn't see why anybody would want a toad. An owl is practical damn it! He wanted one.

"I'd like to get an owl Professor" Bugger it, he can tell the Dursleys that it's a requirement or something.

"Very well, you can go do that, while Mr. Finch-Fletchley and Miss Granger go to the sweetshop. Now, robes..."

* * *

Harry was very much on the fence about this whole robe thing, as he was getting fitted and saw himself in one for the first time he could not decide whether he looked dashing or like a pillock. The way the robe moves as he does also felt a little like what he imagined a dress would feel like. Not that he imagines himself in dresses of course. He guesses that it's just one of many things he will have to get used to. The trip to the bookshop was frustratingly quick. Before McGonagall was calling them to leave, Harry had only enough time to pick up the needed books for his courses and two extra. The extra books he chose were made for introducing muggle-borns into magical society and they were significantly thicker than the one he had at home, but still not as thick as Harry imagines they need to be to give him all the answers he's looking for. There were aisles in that shop that he didn't even get to go down!

Harry was still scowling over his too quick visit, as he strolled through Eeylop owls Emporium. He wondered if he could sneak back before re-meeting McGonagall and the others. First though, owl. How does one pick an owl? Are some better than others? Harry decided that there was only one way to find out and so went up to the counter where an older woman was reading.

"Excuse me miss, could you help me? I want to buy an owl," 'obviously Harry', he thought to himself." and was wondering which ones are the best ones?"

"That would depend on what your going to be using it for, and of course your budget"

"well...I'll be using it for...sending letters," Harry thought this was rather obvious. The woman looked up from her book and pierced him with her blue eyes.

"Yes..." she said this as if Harry was being particularly slow, "but, long distance? Domestic use? Commercial? How often would you be sending letters?" Harry thought the woman was being a bit daft, commercial? Does Harry look like he will be buying an owl for business? He's eleven for christ sake. Harry doesn't really know what he would use the owl for but it won't be for that.

"Ummm… I want a fast owl? And ummm... The budget doesn't really matter" The woman's brows shot up at this.

"I just got a Great Horned Owl in stock a few days ago, fastest owls in the world they are, but the price reflects that at twenty Galleons" Sounds good to Harry.

"Can I see it?" The woman got up and moved somewhere out of view, so Harry looked around and picked up some owl treats and nuts in the hope of maybe bribing the owl to like him. He looked up when he heard the woman come back. The owl was mottled gray-brown with a white patch on its throat, had rather large yellow eyes, and as according to its name, it had long earlike tufts that stuck up on its head like horns. It looked epic.

"I'll take it."

* * *

After a brief lesson on how to care for his owl, Harry left the shop feeling giddy. Which seems to be his normal state for the day. Harry stood outside the store and reached into the cage to stroke his brand new owl. It was so soft!

"Hey there girl, aren't you just a beauty mmmm, what can we name you then?"

"That's a pretty cool looking owl, my father just got me an eagle owl for when I start Hogwarts in a few weeks" Harry looked up from his owl and spotted a boy around his age with white blond hair, a rather pointy face and posh looking robes.

"oh? I don't know anything about owls really, I just asked if they had a fast one and the woman said this beauty was one of the fastest breeds of owls in the world" The boy took my reply as an invitation to come for a chat apparently, as he crossed from where he was standing outside Flourish and Blotts and came to stand beside him to take a closer look at the owl.

"My owl looks similar to yours actually, except mine has darker coloring," He stood up straight then as if suddenly remembering his manners. "I'm Draco Malfoy, and you are…?"

"Oh!, I'm Harry. Harry Potter"

"Potter! So they have finally brought you into the magical world have they!" What? "My father says it's a disgrace that you have not been brought up with the traditions. I bet your glad to be here now, at least they can't stop your affinity lessons, Da- My father was one of the people to make that a law you know" Draco seemed rather proud of his father.

"I'm not sure I follow" Draco looked at him rather pityingly then which Harry didn't appreciate.

"No, I guess you wouldn't would you? It's ridiculous, I can't imagine growing up without magic. It's the muggle-borns that are messing the community up you know, looking down on our traditions when they should be learning them themselves!" Good lord! What is this lunatic going on about? "Well, I will answer any questions you may have, as someone from a prominent pure-blood family, and as someone who holds the families affinity, I'm well versed in wizard society" Harry doesn't understand some of what this boy just ranted about, and he thinks that Draco is bit entitled and a daddies-boy, but Harry does have some questions.

"What is an affinity exactly?" Draco's eyes widen comically.

"You don't know what-Merlin's balls!" Harry couldn't help but share his outrage a little. I mean why did he have to go eleven years without knowing he was a wizard anyway, seems unfair to him. "A wizard or witch with an affinity is particularly gifted in a certain area of magic" He stops and looks at Harry to see if he's following, which he is since he's not dim just un-informed. There is a difference. Harry nods at him to continue "for instance, my family-line has the affinity for mind magic, and so any spells under that-"

"mind magic?" Harry blurts out. Draco looks a little put out by the interruption.

"yes…like memory charms, Occlumency, Legilmency..." Is he still speaking English? "any spells that effect the mind essentially" Right, mind magic, duh.

"What's my affinity then?"

"You don't know!" Is he going to get that outraged every-time Harry confirms that he does not know something? "The Potters affinity is offensive magic, its why your dad was such a hero in the war, I've heard he was formidable in battle." Huh. Cool. Harry rather liked the idea of becoming formidable.

"Offensive magic seems rather vague..."

"Ah, well I don't know how it works exactly, that will only be taught to you, just like how my mind magic affinity details will only be taught to me. Your affinity teacher will have access to your families information" Draco then looked back across to flourish and blotts, Harry followed his gaze and spots a tall regal looking man with the same blond hair that Draco has.

"Listen, Harry, I have to go" He glances back down at my owl briefly "you should write to me if you have any more questions"

"Ye, ok thanks" Harry gave him a grin since he did help him after all.

"Bye Harry!" He turns back to wave at me, which Harry thought was a rather charmingly childish thing to do considering the regal front Draco seemed to put up. Harry waved back, he's got no hope of looking regal, especially with the way his hair was looking today.

"Well come on then owl, better go meet McGonagall and them"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Truth be told, Harry was a little nervous about running through a wall. There was a part of him that feared that it wasn't the entrance to platform nine and three quarters after all and that the author of the introduction book is having a right laugh imagining all the muggle-borns running into a solid structure. Harry would certainly laugh if he was the one who tricked people into doing that himself. As it stood, after waiting the past few weeks to finally go by, Harry was willing to run into even a solid wall if it meant getting to Hogwarts. Life had gone more or less back to normal after his trip to Diagon Alley and Harry had started to feel like the whole thing was some amazing dream. He spent his time studying as much of his school books as he could, though he admits to himself that after the wonder of learning about magic had worn off a little, he noticed that some the books were a little dry, the ones on history and Transfiguration in particular seemed a little overly wordy. Thus he probably could have read a little more if he put some extra effort into it, but sometimes, he caved and watched some mindless tv instead.

Still, Harry felt he was decently prepared for his classes and was looking forward to finally using his wand and doing some actual spells. Harry was also happy that he doesn't have to go to Hogwarts looking like a scrub. He had managed to find time to go to town, and using the money he had exchanged in Gringotts, had bought a whole new wardrobe and some new glasses.

After being left rather abruptly by his uncle at the London station, Harry quickly made his way to the right platform. He got there just in time to catch a large, loud and red-headed family take turns in running and disappearing in the wall between platform nine and ten. Harry was therefore decently reassured that it was the actual way onto the platform and only hesitated slightly before running through himself. Harry's first impression was dominated by the sound. It was loud. The whole platform was buzzing with wizard families bustling about, and every now and again the large red steam train let out loud hissing sounds. Harry saw no reason to hang around so he pushed his cart to the nearest door of the train and started struggling with lugging his stuff onto the blasted thing. A couple of older boys who were waiting to board the train behind him eventually helped him out, and Harry then entered the first empty compartment he came across. He grinned widely. He was finally on his way!

He was brought out of his giddy contemplation when the compartment door opened.

"Harry! Isn't this just so exciting!" Hermione came inside and sat down on the bench across from him, Harry was just too happy to be annoyed by her presence.

"It sure is"

"Have you gotten the chance to read all your school books yet? I've pretty much got them memorised myself" Memorised them? How had she managed to do that in just a few weeks?

"I've made a good start on them" Maybe he should have spent more time studying.

"Well, I guess that's something" She didn't seem very impressed. If she continued being so condescending his happy mood may not be enough to keep the annoyance away after all.

* * *

He was right, twenty minutes later the train was on its way and Harry wanted to pull his own hair out. She had been going on pretty much non-stop, he especially disliked the lectures on Harry's apparent lack of preparation and the way everything she said heavily implied how much better Hermione thinks she is compared to...pretty much everyone else. If Harry could be bothered to put in the effort to get a word in edgewise he would have told her that he has done more than enough work considering classes have not even started yet, and that she should shut her big-toothed mouth since nobody likes a swat. As it was, Harry couldn't make himself be quite that cruel and simply nodded at her and resisted the temptation to bang his head against the window.

Hermione's monologue was blessedly interrupted when there was a short knock on the compartment door before it was slowly opened. A rather round and timid looking boy stood at the entrance.

"Ummm… sorry… but you haven't seen a toad anywhere have you?" Different company! That could only improve things.

"Nope, want to come in to sit with us?" His answer definitely had an edge of desperation to it.

"Oh… umm thanks, but I think I had better keep looking for my toad, my gran will kill me if I've lost it for good this time." Harry didn't think that losing a toad was that much of a loss, but to each their own he guessed.

"Where did you last see it? Maybe we can help you look?" Harry did not appreciate Hermione including him in that, he would rather like to avoid traipsing around looking for a bloody ugly toad. The boy lit up at the offer though, and Harry felt a little bad about his harsh thoughts on it.

"I definitely saw him on the train… but Trevor tends to wander away from me… I don't think he likes me much." He named his toad Trevor! Good god, why?

"Well, let's go compartment by compartment then shall we?" Hermione then stood up and looked at Harry expectantly.

"Oh! Actually, I think I had better stay here and...read my schoolbooks! You know...since you think I'm so behind and all" Harry felt proud of his fast thinking on this. Hermione seemed rather pleased too and gave him a condescendingly proud nod before leaving the compartment with the boy and closing the door behind her.

"Jesus! Thank fuck for that" Harry lay his head back on the seat in relief and basked in the sudden quiet.

He hadn't long pulled out his copy of The Standard Book of Spells and promptly given up on reading it due to his lack of concentration when the compartment door was opened again. Harry tensed. He really thought that finding a toad might take longer. After looking up though, Harry discovered to his relief that it was, in fact, Draco Malfoy standing by the door.

"Oh thank god! Hi Draco" Draco seemed surprised by his enthusiasm at seeing him. "You coming in or what?" Draco hesitantly came and sat straight-backed on the seat across from him, he looked rather peevish actually. "What's up?"

"Well, I'm just surprised that you seem so happy to see me since you didn't write to me after I had graciously offered to help you" Right…that. Harry cleared his throat a little uncomfortably, he didn't think it would be such a big deal.

"oh… I just didn't get around to it really, I was really busy reading the school books" and watching tv "and … well… to be honest Draco I know I'm very much in the dark on the way of things in the magical world, but I'm not sure what questions I should be asking" This seemed to appease him somewhat and he relaxed a little in his seat.

"You still could have written even if you didn't have any questions" Harry was starting to get the impression that what he had read as a polite offer of help, was actually an overture of friendship.

"Well...I'm sorry" Draco nodded in acceptance and the atmosphere between them relaxed. Harry decided that he should probably make an effort in making some school friends since it is now possible to have them with Dudley not being around. Come to think of it, helping that boy with his toad might have been a good idea in that case. Oh well.

"Has that god-awful muggle-born been in here yet? She's helping Longbottom find his toad apparently, to think that he has an affinity! He doesn't look like much does he?" Harry didn't think that he looked like much either, shouldn't someone with an affinity for offensive magic be a little...bigger? And maybe have better hair?

"I was actually stuck in here with Hermione for like half an hour"

"Hermione?"

"The muggle-born your talking about"

"Merlin! That must have been awful, that's some bad luck in compartment choice"

"She actually joined mine…I met her when I went to Diagon Alley." Harry thought that he should try to be nice. "She's… well… she was..." Bugger it. "She's a right headache inducer, she thinks she knows everything and that she's better than everyone" Harry needed to vent a little.

"huh! that's muggle-borns for you" Harry frowned at this.

"What do you have against muggle-borns anyway?"

"My father says it's their jealous opinion on what pure-blood affinity holders have that's leading to the extinction of our traditions. If they had their way, family affinities would be extinct" Harry got the feeling that this was something that his father had repeated to him many times. Harry doesn't quite know what to think about this, as Hermione seemed rather fascinated by him maybe having an affinity when it came up in conversation. Harry told Draco this.

"Well yes she is fascinated now, but many change their minds about that when they see that we get a few privileges because of our status. For the most part, except for blood traitors of course, people who have grown up in the wizarding world understand that magical affinities make the community stronger as a whole, muggle-borns seem to struggle to grasp this and think it would be better if everyone had the same level of power, that's what caused the civil war" Harry was starting to regret not writing to Draco after all.

"So that's what the war was about then? That my parents fought in? It was about protecting affinities?" That was what Harry was getting from this anyway, that one side wanted to protect affinities and the status that comes to those who have it, and the other side wanted to abolish it. Draco looked immensely uncomfortable all of the sudden.

"Well yes...but you know" He shifted in his seat and looked at anything but Harry. "your parents..."

"What?" Harry resisted the urge to shake him and shout 'spit it out, man!"

"Well… they were fighting for Dumbledore..."

"The headmaster?" What did a school headmaster have to do with the war?

"Yes, he was the leader of the order of the Phoenix, who wanted to stop those with affinities from excelling like they should." Wait…

"My parents were fighting against affinities rights?!" How does that even make sense, his dad had one! "Why?"

"I don't know… their side stated that they wanted equal rights...guess they thought it wasn't fair how some got the boost of an affinity and thus got special training because of it" Harry was aware that he was getting a very biased view on all of this and he didn't want to think bad of his parents. That being said, he struggled to see their side. Harry couldn't help having an affinity any more than those who don't can help not having one. Surely it's only right that he gets taught how to use it.

"If the order of the Phoenix won the war, how come some of the affinity rights are still there then?" Harry knew he would be getting special classes in Hogwarts for his training. Draco sat up a little straighter and looked smug then.

"After Grindelwald died, the Black Onyx Council started fighting amongst themselves as no one could agree on who should be the next leader-"

"Grindelwald? Black Onyx Council?" Harry really hated being clueless.

"Grindelwald was the leader of the Black Onyx Council, they wanted to protect our traditions and force muggle-borns to practice them too… essentially they were the ones fighting against what the order and Dumbledore were trying to do. Anyway… after Grindelwald's death, the council started losing more and more battles and eventually the ones that hadn't been killed or taken prisoner disbanded, so the war came to an end. However, the ministry still had just as many supporters for protecting affinity rights as they had against it, so the changes to the law were minimal and my father and others have since changed some of them back." So his parents died in a war that essentially changed nothing. Great. This torrent of information had officially bummed Harry out. Not wanting to ruin his day, Harry changed the subject to the Hogwarts houses and worked on finding his previous optimism.

* * *

Harry was mostly successful in returning to his happy state by the time that Hermione and the boy, who turned out to be named Neville Longbottom, had returned from their unsuccessful toad hunt. After somewhat awkward introductions, the four chatted awhile more about Hogwarts until the obvious disdain Draco had for Hermione, and the clashes of opinion on the houses between Draco and Neville made things rather tense. In the end, Draco and Harry started a separate conversation while Neville and Hermione chatted amongst themselves. He didn't envy Neville.

Draco spent a significant amount of time dramatically explaining to Harry why Slytherin was the only house he should aim for. Harry rather thought that all the houses stood for something he liked to think that he had or would want to have, cunning, bravery, loyalty and brains? Sign him up for all four thanks. He was also damn right confused about the rather low opinion of Hufflepuff, which Draco ensures him others think too. Harry had the rather vain thought that he would like to avoid Hufflepuff and Gryffindor simply because he didn't want to end up having to wear sickly yellow or loud red. In the end, he came to the conclusion that he didn't really mind which house he ended up in, as he was simply happy to be going to the school in the first place.

* * *

After hastily changing into their school uniforms, Draco and Harry had barely had enough time to settle back into their seats when the train whistled to signal their arrival to Hogsmead. The bustle to get off the train was just as chaotic as getting on it, though it was made slightly easier as they got to leave their bags behind as per the instructions.

"First years over here! First years!" Harry made his way to the direction of the voice along with Draco, Neville, and bloody Hermione.

"Holy fuck!" A few people whipped their heads around at his outburst and Draco burst into uncontrollable giggles. He was a little embarrassed, but he just couldn't help it! The man was enormous! That couldn't be natural.

"Language Harry! And don't stare, it's rude." God-damn Hermione. Harry attempted to act a little more mature, he really needed to learn to act a little suaver when dealing with new things in the magical world or he was going to make an idiot of himself in the coming school year.

"Shut up, your not his mother!" Draco's reprimand might have held more weight if it wasn't for the fact that he was still gigging. Posh boy obviously wasn't used to swearing if he found it that hilarious.

"Alright you lot, follow me!" At least it would be easy to see him even for those towards the back of the group. Maybe that's why he was the one that did this job... or maybe they just liked to scare the first years a little. Harry knows he wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of that man's ire.

"Do you think he's a teacher?" Harry asked Draco quietly. Draco let out a rather posh sounding snort. How the hell did he manage to make a snort sound posh?

"Not likely, Dumbledore makes some ridiculous choices for teachers, but I doubt even he is dumb enough to think that oaf could teach, he's the gatekeeper, father says Dumbledore took pity on him when he couldn't finish school and gave him a job." Harry wonders if Draco has any of his own opinions since half of what he says are regurgitated quotes from his father. They walk for a little while until their standing by the edge of a big lake where there are numerous wooden paddle boats (minus the paddle) lined up.

"Alright! Four to a boat!" As night had already fallen the lake looked black in the lack of light and the way the lanterns on the boats reflected in the water made it look like a starry night sky. Draco had started to make his way to the boats but on a whim, Harry grabbed his robe sleeve to hold him back for a moment until the boat that Hermione and Neville got in was filled with two others and then led Draco to another boat that was occupied by a redhead and a rather round girl with a pleasant face. Once they were situated Draco leaned into Harry slightly and whispered.

"A Weasley isn't much of an improvement over a muggle-born" Harry looked to the other two occupants but he didn't know which one Draco was referring to until Draco inclined his head to the girl in greeting "Bulstrode" Harry didn't have a chance to ask Draco what his problem was with the redhead as the giant man started booming at them from the front boat.

"Foward!" Much to Harry's delight, the boats started to move forward on their own. Magic really was a wonderful thing. For a short while, they saw nothing but mountains on either side of them. They had just come across some particularly rocky mountainsides when they turned a corner and he saw it. It was breathtakingly magnificent. Harry's initial thought was to compare it to a castle in a fairytale but quickly squashed that idea. It was simply to Gothic for that description to hold up. It had many towers of various width and heights and some wider and shorter buildings that looked somewhat like cathedrals. The miss-match of different sizes and shapes of buildings, all in a similar Gothic style, came together perfectly. It might have seemed like an unforgiving place if it weren't for the warmth of the lights from the many windows that lit it up and made it feel welcoming. Harry couldn't wait to see what the inside looked like.

"Watch your heads!" They all ducked apart from Neville who got a face full of ivy. The boats then took them into an opening in the cliff face that led to a dark tunnel and an underground Harbor. They disembarked and followed the path upwards towards the castle. It looked even bigger up close and seemed like it might have been there forever. They reached enormous looking doors on what Harry guessed was the main building and the giant knocked on them hard enough to cause resounding bangs. The doors opened and none other than McGonagall was standing there looking as imposing as ever.

"Thank you Hagrid, I'll take it from here" The giant, Hagrid apparently, walked past McGonagall after giving the first years a brief wave. "Right then, follow me" The group made their way inside to an entrance way that had wide stone staircases. The no electricity really hit home as Harry saw all the flickering lanterns that were plastered all over the place as the only source of light. Harry rather liked the effect and thought that light bulbs might have ruined the whole look anyway. They made their way up a set of stairs where they could see another set of large wooden doors at the top. McGonagall stopped outside of them and turned around to address them.

"Welcome to Hogwarts, I am Professor McGonagall, the deputy headmistress. Through these doors, you will take part in a sorting ceremony to discover which of the four Hogwarts houses you belong. That house, or rather your housemates, will become something of a family to you whilst your in Hogwarts. You will attend classes, sleep, and spend your free time in your common room with them." Good lord maybe Harry did care which house he was put in, after all, the last thing he wanted was to be put in a house with a bunch of twits. "The four Houses are Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin, each house has produced great witches and wizards throughout time. Success will gain you house point and rule-breaking will lose them and the house at the end of the year with the most points wins the house cup. The ceremony will be in front of the rest of the school so I suggest you smarten yourselves up." Harry tried to tame his hair a little but judging by the way Draco's lips were twitching as he watched it wasn't a battle he was going to win. After a final look over the group, McGonagall nodded and then opened the doors.

* * *

To say the walk through the hall was daunting would be an understatement. There were four long tables stretching the length of the hall and they were filled with students who had all turned to look at their entrance. Harry felt extremely uncomfortable to think about all the possible thoughts they may have been having about him. Blessedly his thoughts were soon dragged from this and turned to the room itself, or rather, what was above it. There were hundreds of floating candles and the ceiling seemed to be projecting the night sky. Harry overheard Hermione explaining it was some form of enchantment and Harry hoped they would learn how to do that as he would rather like to make his room at the Dursleys project something, even if just for the satisfaction of seeing the Dursleys reaction to it.

They made it to the front of the room where there was another table, this time facing the entrance doors, that were filled with who Harry presumed where the teachers. McGonagall then produced a stool and an old, worn, pointy hat and plonked the hat on the stool. Then she, and the rest of the hall it seemed, turned to look at it. Draco and Harry shared a confused glance. His confusion didn't last long however, as not long after this a split appeared in the hat and it started to...sing? Harry only half listened to the song as he was still blinking at the absurdity of a singing hat and before he knew it McGonagall was calling out names and first years started to go up, sit on the stool, put the hat on, that would then shout out a house name. Harry overheard the red head boy, Weasley? speaking to another boy.

"There is not a Witch or Wizard who went bad that wasn't in Slytherin." Judging by the furious glare Draco shot in the boy's direction he overheard it to. Harry didn't think that a schoolhouse sorting at the age of eleven really determined if you became a criminal later on in life. That was absurd and made the boy seem rather dim. Harry whispered this opinion to Draco who snorted in amusement and seemed to calm a little.

Harry was just starting to develop an icky feeling over the possibility of the hat maybe reading his mind, when Draco's name was called out and his interest peaked.

The hat had barely touched his head when it shouted out Slytherin much to Draco's obvious pride.

"Potter, Harry" Nerves jingling, Harry walked up to the stool and sat down. The hat was placed on his head without further ado. It was big enough to cover his eyes which Harry rather liked since he then didn't have to look out at all those faces looking at him.

"Mmmmm, let's see then" The voice was in his head! "Not a bad mind at all...lot's of ambition to succeed I see, Slytherin could help you there...Your loyalty is fierce but is rather too hard to gain to suit Hufflepuff… your certainty brave… but perhaps too practical for Gryffindor...Difficult, very difficult...Yes… I think it has to be...Slytherin!" The last was shouted out and Harry was extremely relieved to have the hat removed from his head and to make his way to the right table where they were cheering. He sat next to Draco who was beaming at him and couldn't help but to smile back. Green is a rather dashing color on himself after all, brings out his eyes.

* * *

The rest of the ceremony went by quickly, with the end result having, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott, Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode and Daphne Greengrass joining Draco and him in Slytherin. Harry also noted that Hermione, Neville and the Weasley boy, who he found out was named Ron, ended up in Gryffindor. After the ceremony, an ancient looking man stood up, he had a beard down to his belt, was robed in in a rather garish shade of purple, and had a rather long crooked nose. As first impressions go Harry was under-whelmed, this was supposed to be one of the most powerful wizards in the world?

"Welcome back to another year at Hogwarts, I won't keep you away from your food for long, just a few simple announcements. First a notice for first years and a reminder for the rest of you, the forbidden forest is of course forbidden to all students, secondly a reminder from our caretaker, that no magic is to be cast in the corridors, thirdly...let the feast begin." He clapped his hands together once and a feast to end all feasts appeared up and down the whole table. Harry's eyes widened in absolute glee, everything looked delicious and he wasted no time in filling his plate. No-one really spoke much at first, everyone was too busy filling their stomachs, though he noticed that most had impeccable manners and Harry worked on not looking like a complete barbarian. After everyone had started to slow down a bit an older girl who sat next to Draco turned to the group of first years.

"Right, Hello, I'm Gemma Farley and I'm a Slytherin prefect" She had dark skin, rather large eyes, and a friendly demeanour. "after the feast has ended you guys will follow me down to the dungeons where our common room and dormitories are, you'll learn more then, but any questions you may have can be brought to me" Did she just say dungeon?

"I heard that the common room is fantastic" This came from Theodore, who sat across from Harry. He was rather tall, had thick dark hair, and blue eyes.

"Of course it will be fantastic, it's the Slytherin common room after all" Draco really had a love for Slytherin.

"Did she say dungeon though?" He thought it was something worth mentioning. He got the attention of most of the first years then.

"Well ye...only Slytherins know the exact location, but everyone knows that it's in the dungeons" Pansy spoke up from where she was sitting next to Theodore. She didn't have to sound so condescending, pug face bitch.

"Most know, but Harry here might not considering… you know he was brought up outside of the wizarding community" How the hell does Theodore know that?

"How do you know that?"

"It's kind of a big deal in some circles...our circles, that someone with a family affinity was brought up, not just away from our traditions, but away from magic completely. I think I speak for the rest of us here when I say our parents have mentioned the injustice of it more than a few times." Harry looked to the others and saw that they were nodding in agreement, he even spotted some of the older ones, who were obviously listening in, nodding as well. Gemma turned back to us then.

"Well It's lucky Harry ended up in Slytherin then, we'll fill in him on anything needed, first rule of being a Slytherin is that we stick together, united front" The last was said rather pointedly in Pansy's direction, showing Harry was obviously not the only one to pick up on some snooty attitude. "Anything you want to know then Harry?" Why is it that Harry can never think of anything to ask when he actually has the chance to get answers.

"Ummm, anything you think we all should know?" Gemma looked thoughtful for a second.

"I guess I could give you a bit of a low-down on some of the teachers" she turned to the head table and the first years all did the same. "Ok, first comes first, the guy with the black hair and black robs who looks like he would rather be eating slugs than be here is Professor Snape, Head of Slytherin and teaches potions, strict and cutting but he looks out for us Slytherins. McGonagall you've met, she teachers Transfiguration and is head of Gryffindor, she's also strict but quite fair, but she loves her Gryffs so careful if you get any beef with any of them, her punishment won't be easy. Mmmmm, the little guy teaches charms, his name is Flitwick, he's pretty cool and is known to give extensions on essays if you ask in the right way. The one with the turban is Quirrell he teaches defence against the dark arts, he's shit, you're better off practising the spells with each other in the common room after class so long as some older Slytherins are there to deal with anything if it goes wrong, Prof-"She was interrupted by Dumbledore standing up again.

"OK, prefects should now take the first years to their common room." Gemma wasted no time and quickly stood up, and with the first years following closely, she led the way out of the hall.

* * *

"Ok, first thing to know, the stairs like to move" She pointed upward and Harry wasn't the only one who gasped, there seemed to be floors of never-ending stairs and a few of them were, in fact, moving. Navigating this huge castle was going to be a nightmare to begin with, add in the moving stairs and it seemed impossible. "I know it seems mad, but don't worry you'll soon get the hang of navigating the school and until then, older year Slytherins will help you out." Suddenly, there was a crash from a floor above them, a screech from some students, and then a high pitched giggle. "That's Peeves, he's a poltergeist who likes to play pranks on students, luckily he's scared of our house ghost, the Bloody Barron, and we Slytherins tend to avoid the worst of it, however, best to stay clear of him if you can" Fucking ghosts! Harry somehow managed to hide his incredulous horror with sheer strength of will.

They were making their way down some stairs when Harry first noticed it.

"The paintings move!" The walls by the stairs were filled with paintings of people that seemed to be moving, interacting, and talking with the students or with other paintings. Draco turned to him looking a little confused.

"Don't muggle paintings move?"

"No, they bloody well do not" Draco looked thoughtful at this.

"How strange." Harry waved at a painting of a group of women with huge dresses and hand fans. They awwed at him and waved back. Strange indeed.

After going down a few sets of stairs, they started traversing a maze of dimly lit corridors. After two minutes of walking, Harry was sure that even under the threat of death he wouldn't be able to navigate his way back to the hall. They came upon a wall that looked just like any other they had passed and Gemma stopped in front of it.

"If you look closely you will see a small graving of a snake on the stone here" After she pointed it out Harry managed to spot the darker shape of a snake on the wall and was suddenly doubly thankful to have new glasses with the correct prescription. "This is the entrance to the common room and dormitories, you do not bring non-Slytherins here, you do not tell non-Slytherins the password, and every time you come here you check around you first" At this she looked up and down the corridor, "before whispering the password towards the wall" she turned back to the wall and whispered "Snakebite" A dark wood door appeared and the snake graving turned to an ornate silver snake handle. "The password is changed at random intervals and you will be made aware when that is" Gemma then opened the door and ushered us all in.

* * *

It turns out that Theodore was right and the common room really was fantastic. It was filled with sturdy, ornate, warm dark wood furniture and dark, worn leather settees and chairs. The ceiling was high and it had stone walls that had carved arches and columns giving it a grand feel. It had green accents all around in the forms of things like cushions, tapestries, and lampshades, and every corner seemed to have a small snake detail, for instance, engraved on the side of a lamp, or on the shape of the handles on the draws, or on the back of the chairs that were around the desks in the study area. It had a frankly massive stone fireplace that had the Slytherin house crest engraved on it proudly and Harry could imagine himself sitting on the settees facing it, maybe studying or maybe just talking with friends. The main feature of the room was definitely the windows. At first, Harry thought the murky darkness outside the curved windows was another projection as it seemed like there was some movement there, but after he examined it a little more closely, he noticed an outline of a fish swim by and realised that he was looking out into the lake, they were underneath the lake! It was an amazing effect, and he could only imagine what it would look like in the daytime when he could actually see out in it properly.

"Welcome to Slytherin common room, we have an area over here" She points to the far end of the room next to one of the windows. "For playing Chess. Then we have the large study table in the middle of the room which can be used for both group studying or studying alone if the single study areas" At that she pointed to the right of the chess area which held a few small desks with one chair behind each one. "are occupied, bare in mind that come exam season, these places will be in demand and most will have to settle for the library. To the right I'm sure you've noticed the fireplace, it's kept running at all times since it can get chilly down here in the dungeons. To the right of the fireplace, you'll find a staircase that leads to the girl's dormitories, and to the left are the stairs to the boys. Any questions?" Bulstrode put up her hand and Gemma's lips twitched a little at the gesture. "Yes?"

"Those bookshelves by the single study area? Are the books on there ok for us to read?" Gemma seemed a little surprised by the question.

"Oh! Well yes, their bit of eclectic sort, and you'll probably have better luck finding something interesting or that you need for an essay or something in the library, but if something does tickle your fancy… knock yourself out. Any other questions?...no?...cool, breakfast is at seven to nine, however, bare in mind that classes start at nine for you every day so you'll want to leave with enough time to reach your classes on time. For your first two weeks here, someone from Slytherin will be escorting you to each class and so you'll have to leave when they say it is appropriate...ummm what else?...aha! Your schedules will be given to you tomorrow morning at breakfast and those with affinity classes, your schedules will also include information on when that will be. Now Professor Snape should be here soon as he will want to have a quick word with you and then you can all go off to bed, half of you look like your falling asleep where you stand. For now, take a seat on the settees by the fire while you wait." They all did just that with Harry taking a spot next to Draco and Nott taking the seat on Harry's other side. As soon as his butt hit the seat Harry began to realise how exhausted he really was.

"I can't wait to write to father about getting into Slytherin" Draco still seemed to be on a high.

"I'm really glad you got in where you wanted to Draco" Draco seemed a little surprised by Harry's comment.

"Oh! Well...I'm glad your in the same house as me" Draco cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"You two met before then?" Theodore looked as exhausted as Harry felt.

"We met briefly in Diagon Alley and then re-connected on the train" Harry answered.

"Oh, you never said Draco"

"I haven't seen you since I met him"

"Wait… do you all know each other then?" Come to think of it Draco seemed to recognize a lot of their year mates.

"Ye, most pure-bloods and the half-bloods who practice our traditions have known each other since we were little since we've been going to each other's rituals and all the same holiday rituals since we've been able to walk," Theodore explained. Harry was not happy with this news, integrating himself into a group of people who have known each other forever seems like a big job. Something of his feelings must have shown on his face as, surprisingly, Draco was quick to reassure him.

"Don't worry though Harry, you'll fit in fine, I'll make sure of it"

"So will I, in fact so will most, we're supposed to be teaching those that don't know about our traditions and try to...bring them into the fold so to speak anyway, and with you being an affinity holder you won't have any problems fitting in, people will want you in their group." Their reassurance did work a bit though Harry still worried a little.

"Do you have an affinity then Theodore?"

"Yep, my family affinity is for physical spells" He must have noticed Harry's blank look as after a short pause he further explained "In other words I'm going to be great at Charms or spells that affect the physical body...uh things like, charms that make you stronger or faster for period of time or ones that make your eyes able to see in the dark" That sounded pretty neat, Harry would like to learn about those too, even if he won't be as great at them as Theodore. After giving Harry another thoughtful look Theodore spook again "How about I tell you who else in our year has an affinity?" He looked around the room then. "OK, Goyle's affinity is magical resistance, not to be confused with Dumbledore's affinity which is in magical defence, Goyle's affinity is a little different than most, in fact he won't even be having lessons on it, as what it is essentially is that offensive spells and curses affect him a lot less than it would any other wizard. Mmmm Crabbe's family affinity died out generations ago...Pansy's family has an affinity in runes but she has an older sister in third year named...Penny, I think, who holds it...Bulstrode is a descendant of the black family and the black family affinity in jinxes died out when Regulas black died… that's it for this year Slytherins...Ummm, Weasleys have an affinity in healing magic but the oldest Weasley has left Hogwarts now...Longbottom holds an affinity for Herbology, Did Lovegood start this year Draco?"

"Na...Next year I think"

"Aha, well Lovegoods have an affinity for divination, That's all I can think of right now..."

"There isn't that many then?"

"Na, not really… I mean there are a few other British families that still have an affinity but don't have anyone in Hogwarts right now, but they won't mean anything to you." Harry was about to ask about them anyway when the common room door opened and Professor Snape swooshed into the room and quickly strode over to them.

"I am Professor Snape, the head of Slytherin" His piercing eyes swiped across them all. "I expect my Slytherins to conduct themselves to the highest levels in both behavior and class work and anything between and beyond. Above all else, however, I expect you all to create a united front. Slytherins will look out for each other's backs. no. matter. what." This guy is intense. "If there are any problems between you" A rather fierce look was sent their way then "Though I should hope that there shouldn't be many, that you will solve those problems within these walls, and you will. resolve. them. I won't have long-lasting tension in this house. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir" Harry doesn't think anyone dared not reply.

"Good, tomorrow I shall have Miss. Farley show you where my personal quarters are so that if you have any problems, be they school related or more personal, I will be available should you wish it. Miss. Farley and Mr. Flint, who is the male prefect, will also be available to help if you are more comfortable with that. Though be aware, if they deem it necessary they will report things back to me, however, this will only be the case if they believe that you are in danger of some kind or due to other series matters that they feel they cannot deal with themselves. Now, it has been a long day, I suggest you settle for bed soon, in the morning you should gather here where an older student will meet you to take you to the breakfast hall at eight o'clock. That is all Goodnight," With that, he gave them all a nod and strode out of the room. The first years all sat still for a moment, sending glances each other's way.

"Blimey" Harry commented, getting a few short laughs in response.

"He is rather intense isn't he" Daphne commented from the other couch. She was one of the smaller girls, had long blond hair, brown eyes, and a button nose. People made general sounds of agreement before the common room door opened again and this time a muscular boy with dark hair and large front teeth came into the room.

"Aha! First years, I'm Flint, male prefect, any problems you can come to me." He took a look around us all and he smirked a little. "Don't worry about Snape, he's a tough one, but if you follow the rules you'll be fine. I wouldn't for a hundred million galleons tell this to his face, but he has soft spot for his snakes." His grin turned a little evil then "Can't say he feels that way about the rest of the pupils though, now off to bed you lot, you all look fu- I mean bloody knackered"

* * *

The boys and girls split up and headed up the appointed stairs. Harry was just wondering how he would know which door to go in when he noticed the plaques on the doors, each one had four names engraved on them. He eventually came across one that had Theodore, Draco, Blaise and his name on it and he entered the room.

The room was larger than he expected, it had, four decent sized four poster beds with green drapes, a storage trunk on the end of each bed, a heater in the centre of the room, a lot more silver snake ornament decorations, a few more of those fantastic windows with views underneath the lake (just how deep was the lake anyway?), and another door which looked to lead to a bathroom. Harry headed to the bed that he noticed had his things on top of and groaned out loud at the thought of having to unpack before being able to go to sleep. Draco, who had the bed next to Harry's on the right, turned to him at the sound.

"What's the matter?"

"I'm too tired to unpack everything."

"Oh I can help with that, I've seen my parents use this spell a thousand times." he then waves his wand towards his trunk and says "Unpack!" His items then moved in an organized sequence out of his trunk and around the room. His clothes went to the huge wardrobe that Harry guessed they were meant to share, knick-knacks and school books went into the trunk at the end of his bed, and socks and pants went in the drawers in the bedside table. "Do you want me to do yours for you?"

"Na, I'm uh gonna try it myself" He was going to do magic for the first time!

"Ok, you have to move your wand like this" Draco repeated the gesture he made earlier and with a deep breath Harry swishes his wand and said "Unpack!" and… it worked his items started moving where they should all by themselves. As spells go, it wasn't exactly exciting, but Harry was ecstatic. He did magic. He threw what he was sure was a blinding smile at Draco and then at Theodore and Blaise for good measure. Theodore gave him a thumbs up and a smile and Blaise smirked at him.

"Your easily pleased Potter"

"It's Harry" Harry didn't think that having a boy you'll be living with calling him by his second name felt right.

"Right...I'm Blaise" Blaise had dark skin, was tall and had very short hair. Was everyone going to be tall compared to Harry?

"Good to meet ya"

They all got ready for bed then and were soon settled under the cozy quilts. Harry was almost asleep when he heard the whisper from Draco.

"Hey, Harry?"

"ye?"

"What did you name your owl after?"

"Aura, I named her Aura"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

When Harry first awoke he was disoriented. He knew before he opened his eyes that he was in an unfamiliar place. Memories of the day before soon came flooding back however, and Harry's eyes sprung open and a large smile broke out onto his face. He looked around the room and discovered that Draco was still cocooned under the duvet in his bed, but both Blaise and Theodore's beds were empty and he could hear running water coming from the bathroom. After checking the time and discovering it was half seven, Harry made his way to the bathroom for his morning routine and found Blaise there wrapped in a towel and fussing with what little hair he had in the mirror.

"Morning Blaise!" Blaise let out a small moan and turned to look at Harry with bleary eyes.

"Your not a morning person are you?" He asked this as if he was asking whether Harry liked to murder children. Cute young children who were well behaved.

"huh...not usually actually" Waking up to a day of magic instead of a day with the Dursleys seemed to make him a lot more cheerful in the mornings that's for sure.

"Theodore already gone down?" Harry made his way to a shower stall and casually removed his pajamas.

"Yep, he was up at like half six and spent about an hour in here getting ready"

"An hour! Bloody hell what was he doing?" Harry turned on the water so Blaise's reply was a little muffled.

"Merlin knows"

"Hey, Blaise? What do we do with our dirty clothes?" Harry had to raise his voice a little to be heard.

"Oh, just leave them on the floor, the house elves will sort it."

"of course...house-elves" Harry made a note to himself to look up house-elves when he had the chance.

"Right I'm off, see ya down there"

Harry had finished getting ready not long after Blaise left. He rather liked the way his uniform looked with the Slytherin crest and colors. It looked spiffy. Harry went back to the dorm room to see that Draco was still in bed. He made his way over to him and poked him a little.

"Draco...Draco get up we have to be downstairs in like...fifteen minutes." Draco's eyes snapped open suddenly and he threw the blankets off himself.

"Fifteen minutes! I can't get ready in fifteen minutes, I won't have time to do my hair! Why didn't you wake me earlier!" Harry didn't have time to reply before Draco sprinted into the bathroom. Harry was a bit flabbergasted at his dorm-mates, he thought that the fifteen minutes he took to get ready today was excessive and blames the great temperature and pressure in the shower for being so hard to leave. He thought it was girls who needed extra time to get ready in the mornings. Harry gave a mental shrug and decided to wait for Draco in the dorm room.

They managed to make it downstairs in time to meet with the rest of their year and Flint who wasted no time in leading them through the maze of corridors. Harry was trying to pay attention and learn the route but kept getting distracted by Draco.

"Stop pouting Draco your hair looks fine" It looked a hell of a lot better than it did yesterday when it was slicked back with that gunk in Harry's opinion, but he thought it better not to say that out loud. Draco simply harrumphed. "Besides, if you just stay next to me your hair will look neat as a pin in comparison to mine." This seemed to cheer him up.

"Your hair truly is a disaster"

"Hey!" They both looked at each other and then burst into giggles.

* * *

Harry was sat in the great hall, in between Draco and Theodore, and working his way through a second helping of scrambled eggs and toast when Professor Snape made his way over and started handing out their schedules. Harry got his before Draco.

"What have we got?"

"mmm, double potions first, then after break we have Charms, then Transfiguration, then after dinner I have my affinity lesson, what will you have then?"

"Probably study period"

"Makes sense, after that we have Astronomy"

"Uck!, Astronomy"

"I don't know, spending a lesson looking at the stars sounds good to me"

"If only that was all we have to do, besides I don't think we will be looking at a lot of stars at four in the afternoon." Harry blinked.

"Oh ye, what's that about?" Theodore chipped in then.

"It's probably a theory lesson, if you look at the rest of the week the other astronomy lessons are on later, eight pm on Thursday and Friday" From the corner of his eye, Harry noticed Flint stand up from the top of the table.

"Right first years listen up, this is Lucian Bole he will take you to potions," He pointed to a third year wiry boy who had stood up next to him. After another moment when nobody had moved Flint rolled his eyes. "Now people! You do not want to be late for Snape's class" That got them moving fast.

* * *

They made it to the class with ten minutes to spare and stood outside to wait. Harry was pretty sure that they weren't all that far from the Slytherin Dormitories. He thinks. Some Gryffindors soon started to join them, looking a little harried, they must not have someone showing them where to go. Hermione was one of the first and she looked raring to go for her first lesson. Harry tried not to make eye contact in fear of her taking that as an invitation to chat. There still seemed to be some Gryffs missing when the door was opened by Snape.

"Enter" Harry had to work hard on not running his hands along the weird bottles that had...things in them that were lined up on all the walls. There was two to a desk and Harry would have rathered a desk further up the back, but Draco seemed eager and guided him to the front table on the left. It turned out that the Slytherins all ended up on the left and the Gryffindors on the right, seems that house rivalries were already kicking in. A few Gryffindor joined just as Snape was about to close the door and they got a damn right frightening glare in response.

 _"There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class. As such, I don't expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science and exact art that is potion-making. However, for those select few…Who possess, the predisposition… I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death."_

Wow, sign Harry up for a bit of that. "Longbottom! What does a Polyjuce potion do?" Harry doesn't remember that in the potions book.

"ummmm...it ummm..I-I don't know sir" Neville looked damn right petrified. Snape gave Neville a contemptuous look.

"Anyone with more sense care to help Longbottom out?" Hermione's hand shot up into the air. "Anyone?" Harry smothered a smile at Snape's disregard and Hermione's frustration. Draco raised his hand then. "Malfoy?"

"It allows the drinker to assume the appearance of someone else"

"Correct, ten points to Slytherin" Hermione dropped her hand with a frown. "What determines who the drinker turns into?"

"At the end of conducting the potion, you add in a component of the person you wish to turn into, like a strand of hair." How the bloody hell does he know this! Harry had read over the potions book quite thoroughly, but he knew nothing of this. Sounds cool as hell though.

"Correct, ten points to Slytherin" Snape's eyes then strayed to Harry and he got a sinking sensation in his stomach. "Potter, Where would you look if I tell you to find me a Bezoar?" Oh! Harry knew this! After reading all about how doing a potion wrong or how mishandling ingredients can cause poisoning Harry had made sure he knew of a way to deal with that just for his peace of mind.

"In the stomach of a goat sir." Snape nodded once.

"And what use does a Bezoar have?"

"It can save you from most poisons."

"Correct, ten points to Slytherin" Harry let out a sigh of relief and shared a smile with Draco. Snape then turned his attention to the Gryffindors again just for the satisfaction of seeing them fail it seemed, as he avoided Hermione no matter how hard she waved her hand in the air. She eventually resorted to blurting the answers out and thus losing points for Gryffindor. By the end of the lesson, Slytherin was up 40 points and Gryffindor down by 30. All in all, Harry was rather pleased with how his first ever lesson in Hogwarts went.

* * *

His second lesson was also pretty cool. Flitwick seemed nice enough and they got to practice the levitation charm, something Harry had wanted to do since he first read about it. He was a bit annoyed that Hermione managed to get it right first, gaining points for Gryffindor, however, he soon had the hang of it and spent the remainder of the lesson goofing around with Theodore and Draco by racing to see who could get their feather to reach the roof first.

Transfiguration didn't go by quite as well. It turned out that turning a match into a needle is a lot harder than it looks. Harry spent the majority of the lesson glaring at the blasted thing and thinking back to when McGonagall had turned the coffee table into a pig. Harry had a lot of work to do to get to that point. He was definitely going to be practicing and reading up more on Transfiguration. By the end of the lesson, his match had turned to metal but still had the shape of a match. Most of the class had not done much better, apart from Hermione of course, her match was distinctly needle-like. Ron, however, had not managed to change his match at all, something which Draco was swift to point out.

"Pathetic attempt there Weasley"

"Shut up Malfoy, yours wasn't much better!"

"But it is better..." Red-heads being hot-headed is apparently no myth. Ron narrowed his eyes and started to lunge for Draco. Luckily they were still just outside of McGonagall's classroom and she came out before he could reach Draco who was discretely edging his way behind Goyle, much to Harry's amusement.

"What is going on out here?!"

"Nothing Miss McGonagall, Ron here just got upset about his lack of progress in class and had decided to take it out on Draco." Harry was stretching the truth here a little bit, but house solidarity and all that.

"Mr. Weasley with more practice and reading you will improve, however, we do not attack other students, ten points from Gryffindor" Ron had just opened his mouth to no doubt complain when McGonagall continued "WE also do not provoke other students Mr. Malfoy, ten points from Slytherin" Damn she must have heard some of what went on. "Now off to dinner the lot of you"

* * *

Dinner was interesting as it seemed like Harry had gained a few points where the first years were concerned after he spoke up for Draco. Seems like they take house unity as serious as Snape does. Harry had eaten more than he should judging by the way his stomach felt and was happy to leave when Gemma came to get him to take him to his affinity lesson.

"Come on then Harry, as for the rest of you, Flint will take you to the Library in a little bit for your study session, you don't have to stay there and you can go back to the common room if you wish, but make sure you make the trip there since then you'll know where it is for future reference, Harry, I'm sure someone can show you where it is at a later time." With that, Harry followed Gemma out of the hall.

"Here we are. Just for future reference" Gemma pointed a few doors down the corridor, "that's where your Defence against the dark arts lesson will be."

"Cool, thanks" Gemma didn't hang around and made her way back the way she came. Harry stood outside the door for a few moments, feeling rather nervous about this lesson since he would be on his own. He eventually built up the courage and knocked on the door. The door was opened quick enough that the teacher must have been standing on the other side.

"I was starting to wonder how long you were going to stand out here, come in, come in" The man was in his thirties, was of average height, had a lean but slightly muscular build, had short dark blond hair, and unusual dark blue eyes.

"Ummm, sorry" Harry followed the man inside the rather dusty classroom.

"Not to worry, I'm Mr. Corban Yaxley, and if you haven't guessed it yet, I am your affinity teacher. Take a seat." He pointed to an area next to a fire that had two comfy looking leather chairs. The area looked rather out of place actually. "Today I have a lot to go through, especially since you grew up away from magic, so I figured we may as well be comfortable so I conjured us some chairs and a fire." Harry's eyebrows shot up a little. He knows that conjuring is an advanced form of Transfiguration, only second in difficulty to human Transfiguration, and after he had so much trouble this morning with turning a match to a needle it was hard not to be impressed. Harry sat down on one of the comfy chairs and Yaxley sat on the other and gave him a welcoming smile.

"Right, first things first, could you tell me what you have picked up on affinities in the short time you have been in the magical world?"

"well… I know my affinity is in offensive magic, and um, Theodore told me who at Hogwarts had an affinity and in what."

"Theodore Nott?"

"Ye"

"Glad to see you've been talking with other holders."

"I've become friends with him and Draco" At least Harry thinks they're friends. Potential friends anyway.

"Malfoy, good that will help you a bit." Yaxley looked thoughtful for a moment. "ok...where to start…First of all, do you know what an affinity actually is? Or how it works?" Harry frowned in thought.

"I know that having an affinity in something means that the witch or wizard finds it easier to perform that type of magic and can produce more powerful spells in that branch too...I don't really know how it works exactly."

"It has been described by affinity holders that they get a kind of...boost to their spells and magic when conducting something in their affinity parameters. You will feel the difference when you perform some offensive spells. To be honest that is something better for you to experience than for me try to explain to you. For now, let's build on the knowledge you already know." Yaxley moved a little in his chair seemingly trying to get comfy. "Would you like some tea, Harry?"

"Oh! Sure, thanks"

"Zinky!" There was a sudden pop and a...thing appeared, it was short with a large head and flappy big ears and bulging tennis ball eyes.

"Fucking hell!" Yaxley actually jumped in his seat a little at Harry's outburst. In other circumstances, Harry might have been a bit worried about swearing in front of a teacher like that, but his thoughts were too consumed with the thing that was now staring at Harry. Harry inched backward in his seat. Yaxley turned to the thing and said in a rather strained voice.

"Could you bring me and Mr. Potter some tea please?"

"Of course, sir" Harry was the one to jump in his seat this time, It can talk! With another pop, it was gone from the room and Yaxley started to chuckle. Apparently, the strain in his voice wasn't from anger but amusement.

"Not met a house-elf yet then Harry?"

"So that's what a house-elf is! Christ! Blaise could have warned me when they come up in conversation this morning" Yaxley amusement had simmered down to a smile.

"To be fair it probably never occurred to him to have to warn you about them, most pure-blood families and a big chunk of half-blooded ones own house elves." Harry's heart had gone back to normal by the time Zinky returned with the tea. Harry tried not to stare at him."Right, where was I? Since you know about other family affinities you must have noticed that they vary greatly, for instance, do you know about Goyle's affinity?"

"Ye, magic resistance, it's something that just is, not something he can practice and build on"

"Precisely, other affinities vary widely too, though Goyle's is a particularly strange one. The other major differences are the range of scope an affinity has, for instance...Longbottom has an affinity for herbology, that doesn't bleed into any other magic branches, however, your affinity can bleed into many different ones in the right circumstance." Yaxley took a drink of tea and Harry did the same. "It's a difficult thing to both explain and to grasp so bear with me here… magic itself is not simply a tool we use, it does not only follow the formula of a certain word or phrase combined with the right wand movements, your intent matters too. The same spell conducted with a different intent can have very different results. Think about when I conjured these chairs, my intent is what led to them looking and feeling like they do, if I changed my intent to making two supremely uncomfortable chairs, that is what would have appeared even though the spell is the same for both types of chairs. Are you following me so far?"

"Ye," He thinks so anyway.

"Well intent also affects your affinity, offensive magic includes the obvious spells that can be used against an opponent, but sometimes other spells can be adapted to be used as an offensive spell and that will also get your affinity magic boost. Well, a lot of the time anyway, magic is finicky, a big part of what we will be doing here is discovering what spells we can adapt to use your affinity magic and what ones we can't. There are no black and white rules. This means that as well as the obvious jinxes, hexes, and curses, your affinity also bleeds into other branches such as charms and transfiguration. It's what I call the grey area, it depends on your intent." Yaxley paused to finish off his tea and Harry used the time to think about what he said.

"Draco mentioned when I first met him that my affinity was seen as powerful because it was vague."

"That's right. Malfoy's affinity for instance, is more restrained since it only pertains to mind magic. Just think of Dumbledore, he's considered as one of the most powerful wizards in the world, and one of the reasons for this is that his affinity in defense magic can mean multiple branches of magic, counter-jinxes, counter-charms, counter-curses..." Harry nodded in understanding.

"Could you give me an example of one of the...grey area spells?"

"Mmmmm... have you had your first charms lesson yet?"

"Yep this morning"

"You practiced the levitation charm correct?" Harry nodded. "Ok, let's use that charm as an example, today you used magic to float a feather, no need for your affinity magic to kick in there, but what if you wanted to use that charm to levitate someone from the ground and drop them into the ground?" Oh!

"That would make my affinity magic kick in?"

"Yes, though remember that won't always be the case, we will work on that here. Actually! An example of that could be...have you had a Transfiguration lesson yet? The whole match to a needle dilemma?" Harry couldn't help but frown in memory.

"Ye"

"Well, there are some scenarios where transfiguration gets your affinity boost, but I know that even if you had the intent to say… use the transfigured needle to stab someone in the hand, it wouldn't affect your affinity. Whereas I'm also aware that if you wanted to transfigure...let's say...your hands into claws with the intent on attacking someone with them, then you would get the boost. Your affinities relationship with Transfiguration seems especially turbulent."

"How do you know so much about my affinity?"

"ah! I guess you wouldn't know about us teachers would you" Yaxley sent an apologetic smile Harry's way. "Each family has a different assigned affinity teacher, that teacher is chosen by the predecessor, how the first lot were chosen I don't know. Anyway, when I was appointed I got given books that have been passed on for generations, they hold information on your affinity, I will probably have you read some of them" Something was bugging Harry.

"But...why do they have teachers at all, why can't the parent with the affinity teach the child?" Yaxley's eyebrows climbed a little.

"Well, first off for situations like yours," Harry flushed a little, that was rather obvious. He had no-one to teach him. "But also it's to ensure that a child with an affinity gets a good chance to develop their magic. What if there was a parent that was amazing at controlling their own affinity magic but was actually hopeless at teaching? Or what if a parent and a child did not get along and the parent deliberately sabotaged the training?" Harry nodded in understanding.

"Right, I still have a few quick things to go through but how about we have a quick go so that you can know first hand what affinity magic feels like?" Harry was out of his seat in a heartbeat.

"I'll take that as a yes" Yaxley stood up and conjured a dummy that hung from the ceiling and a quill. He put the quill on the table. "Right I want you to use the levitation charm on this, but really pay attention to how the magic feels to you."

Harry took out his wand and pointed it at the quill. "Wingardium Leviosa!" The quill floated into the air and Harry felt relieved that he hadn't forgotten how to do it. He felt the rush of magic that felt like it came from his stomach and up through his arm.

"Great, now face the dummy" Harry did so. "This time I want you to think about levitating this dummy with the intention of smashing it into the floor. Ok?" Harry nodded, feeling very eager.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" This time he felt the same rush of magic, but on top of that, he felt a second source of magic that seemed to wrap itself around the usual kind. He couldn't explain it, but somehow the magic just felt...easier? more natural? He didn't have time to really think on it, because before he knew it the dummy rocketed into the air and then plummeted to the ground with shocking speed, smashing to pieces on impact. Harry jumped at the sound. "Wicked!" Yaxley looked at the dummy pieces and blinked a little.

"huh," Yaxley looked back at Harry and gave him a rather long look, before a smile broke out onto his face "Well done, Harry! Very impressive!" Yaxley looked back at the dummy again and whistled "Didn't expect you to get that right the first time! I think we are going to have a rather good time in your lessons." Yaxley seemed to get lost in thought for a moment then sobered a little. "Something to think about though, imagine that was a person." Harry paled a little. "It's important you remember that this is serious stuff were practicing, always be aware of your strength. When your practicing offensive spells in defense against the dark arts, make sure you've thought through what you're going to do, ok?"

"Yes sir"

"Good, come sit back down then."

* * *

They both settled back down on the seats. "We only have the one lesson a week so I plan to make the most of them, when you reach your third year our lessons will be twice maybe three times a week, depending on how the upcoming school board vote goes, though knowing Malfoy were likely to get three. It's in your third year that I really plan to start more advanced spells. Here's some more food for thought though. These lessons are not connected to the school like your usual ones. There will be no end of year exam and no essays. These lessons are for you. You work hard at them, you will be the one to benefit, you slack off, you're the one that missed out."

"I won't slack off sir"

"No, I don't believe that you will." Yaxley twisted in his seat and picked something up from the floor. "I got you something, this is a book for you to write down anything magical affinity related, any spells that we discover that can be adapted for your affinity, any ideas you have, anything I say that you want to remember. I'm never going to read or mark it, it's simply for your personal use." Yaxley pauses then and studies Harry a little. "This book has a few enchantments on it that will only allow the owner to read what is written, I will have to activate it for it to work." Yaxley hesitated again before continuing "To be completely honest with you Harry the enchantments on here are a little in the grey area where magic is concerned. The reason being that in order for it to notice it's owner... a bit of blood has to be added to the cover to finish off the enchantment. I thought about using more...kosher enchantments but they tend to hide the words written until the right password is uttered, however that doesn't stop anyone from reading over your shoulder or maybe discovering your password. This enchantment will mean you and only you will be able to see anything written in it." Sounds really cool to Harry.

"Ok, what do I need to do?" Yaxley put the dark leather book on the table and whispered some words Harry didn't catch and then handed Harry a needle. "Just nick your finger on that and put a few drops of blood on the book cover." Harry did just that and the book glowed for a second before returning to normal "There" Yaxley pointed his wand at Harry's nicked finger and it healed instantly. "mmm... just so you know Harry, you can trust me, as your family affinity teacher my first priority is you, however, if someone else asks you for your blood to use in a spell, do _not_ give it to them unless you are certain of their intention and understand the spell and it's consequences thoroughly. ok?" Harry nodded seriously. In retrospect, it does seem rather stupid of him to hand over his blood with no thought even after Yaxley warned him that blood magic is considered to be a little on the dark side of magic "Ok, one last thing and you can be on your way." Yaxley bent down again this time coming out with a patterned robe that shimmered in the light. "This is a family affinity heirloom, when your father died it came to me until you were old enough to inherit it,"

"A cloak?" Yaxley looked amused.

"Go try it on" Yaxley conjured a full-length mirror and Harry got up to stand in front of it with the soft feeling robe in his arms. He put it on.

"Holy Shit!" His body disappeared! He was a floating head! Yaxley snorted.

"It's an Invisibility cloak, a rather special one I think, I had an interested...party come to me after I got that, asking if they could borrow it, I refused of course, but best be careful of who you tell about that cloak all the same" The things he could do and get away with in this! Harry's face broke out into a damn right wicked grin and Yaxley snorted again.

"And try not to get into too much trouble with it either"

"No promises"


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The first few weeks of school went by quickly for Harry. He discovered that the history of magic lessons were good for nothing but a good nap since they were mind-numbingly boring, that Herbology was rather fun since he got to play around with magic plants most lessons, and that astronomy was shit since he didn't believe you could learn anything worthwhile by studying hidden meanings in the stars. He also learned that flying was amazing, Harry seemed to pick it up quickly even surpassing Draco in skill despite Draco having flown since he was little. Draco pouted for a full day over that until Harry cheered him up by showing him his invisibility cloak, Draco was both excited about the things they could do with it and by the fact that he is the only one who knew about it.

Harry was most disappointed to discover that Gemma's warning over defense against the dark arts lessons being shit was correct, Quirrell was scared of his own bloody shadow, there was talk of setting up practice times in the common room with some of the older students. Harry had mentioned the ridiculousness of the lessons to Yaxley so he had been going through some of the spells in his affinity lessons, the ones that could come under his affinity anyway, so far his favourite has been the knock-back jinx. Harry could send the dummy clear across the room and smash it into the wall with that. Yaxley has also been teaching him control since if he is going to be practicing with other students he can't be flinging them at walls like he has the dummies. He has gotten quite good at controlling the power of a spell and he has found that this has helped with all his other spell work too.

Harry had been working hard on Transfiguration in particular, he had made use of the library and researched a few other books to get a better understanding and has seen an improvement. Which was why he was currently in his dorm room attempting a second-year transfiguration spell that had intrigued him. It was a spell that turned a tea-cup into a rat, Harry liked the idea of turning an inanimate object into an animal. So far he wasn't having much luck, though the cup did grow some fur on one of his tries. Getting frustrated Harry decided to try something. What if he had the intention of making a rat that would attack people? Would that mean his affinity magic would kick in? Harry tried the spell again only this time with the intention of making a rat that would attack the next person who entered the room...and it worked! Harry felt the now familiar rush of his affinity magic alongside his normal magic and the tea-cup changed into a very large, ugly rat with pointed front teeth and sharp nails.

"Whoop!" He thrust a fist into the air and smiled wide.

He was studying the rat closely when it occurred to him that he doesn't quite know how to turn it back. His smile slipped and he cast a nervous look at the door of the dormitories. Someone was in for a nasty surprise if he didn't turn the rat back. Harry tried to turn it back into a tea-cup, but without the rush of affinity magic, he couldn't quite manage it. He then tried ' Finite Incantatem' with no success.

"Oh, Fuck" Just then Harry heard footsteps coming up the stairs to the dormitory. "Wait! Don't come in-" It was too late. Theo strolled into the room casual as you can be. He didn't get far though. The rat shot off of Harry's bed, squealing all the while, and landed on Theo's chest and started scratching and biting him.

"Ahhhh! owww! Shit! what in Merlin!, owww!" Harry dived off the bed behind the rat and tried to pull the rat off of Theo, getting a few scratches on his hands himself.

"Ow! Mother fuck! Get off him you bloody monster!" The two of them and the ferocious rat started moving about the room in some sort of uncoordinated violent dance until Harry finally had the blasted thing in his hands.

"Quick get me something I can put it in!" Theo ran to Harry's empty owl cage and Harry threw the rat in and slammed the door shut. The two stood panting and staring at the cage with wide eyes for a moment. On Theo's chest his shirt was torn and bloodied and on one side of his cheek, he had angry bloodied scratches.

" . .that!"

"I'm sorry! I was trying to- I turned a tea-cup into a – I'm sorry! Come on I'll take you to the infirmary" Harry felt awful, he had become rather close to his dorm mates these past few weeks and didn't like that he had now essentially attacked one of them with a rat. He really should have thought that spell through. Should have made it so that rat would attack the people he told it to not the first person who walked into the damn room. Hind-sight is a bitch.

Harry told Theo the story behind the attacking rat on the way to the infirmary and was a little scared that Theo would be mad. He was staring at his feet after he finished with his tale when he noticed from the corner of his eye that Theo's shoulders were shaking. His head shot up in horror thinking Theo was crying only to discover he was holding in chuckles with a hand over his mouth.

"Merlin Harry! I was just attacked by a killer rat! A rat!" Harry felt a smile breaking out on his face too. It was ridiculous when he thought about it.

"The sounds you made-"

"Hey! a lot of that screeching was the rat...only like a quarter of it was me...and besides another quarter of it was you!" At that, they both burst out laughing and by the time they made it to Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, they had to tell her what had happened between hapless giggles. When she asked where the rat was now and they realized they had left it in the dorm, they had another laughing fit over thinking of Draco and Blaise's confusion over finding a caged feral rat in their dorm.

* * *

It was two days before Halloween and Harry was feeling a little down. Draco and he were on their way to dinner when Draco let his own feelings about the situation known.

"I wish you could come with me, next year you'll have to get those blasted muggles of yours to sign the consent form so you can come to mine for the holiday rituals." Anyone who practiced the traditions had consent to spend Halloween at their parent's house to participate in the Halloween ritual. Draco had gotten permission from his father for Harry to go with him, however, after asking Snape if he could go, Snape informed him that Dumbledore will not allow anyone whose families do not practice the traditions to participate in the rituals without signed consent from their guardians. Since Harry was sure that the Dursley's would not answer an owl never mind sign a consent form he knew there was no chance he could go.

"I'll have to find a way to get them to sign so I can come with you next year" Harry tried to put some cheer in his voice, but some of his glum mood came through. Draco's frown turned darker.

"Fucking Dumbledore! You shouldn't even have to live with those muggles anyway!"

"I don't think me living with the Dursleys is all Dumbledore's fault." Draco Harrumphed.

"course it is, he's probably the one who turned your parents to his side and thus gave them the idea to write it in their will that you should live away from the magical world if they croaked." Both Harry's and Draco's eyes widened at the harshness of that statement. "Uhh... no offense Harry" Harry couldn't help but snort a little. Whether you say passed away, died or bloody croaked it meant the same thing.

"Doesn't matter, I'll make you copies of the notes from the classes your missing" The people who were going would be missing the first two classes the morning after Halloween.

"Thanks, while I'm home I'm going to try to get my parents to let me stay at Hogwarts for Christmas"

"You don't have to do that Draco, I'm used to Christmases sucking anyway. I'll be fine" They had reached their table by then and Theo, Blaise, and Daphne overheard his comment.

"I'm going to ask my parents if I can stay to" Said Theodore.

"Ye, me too, though I don't know if they will go for it" Added Blaise.

Harry got a warm feeling in his stomach, to think he had friends who would give up Christmas with their families just to stop him from having to spend it at Hogwarts alone.

"Thanks, guys" Harry sent them all a warm smile.

"Oh what! If I knew you guys were going to stay I would have tried to get out of going to visit my cousins this Christmas, a bunch of bitches the lot of them." Daphne pouted at them all. Daphne then started to regale stories about her cousins. Who by the sounds of it, really were a bunch of bitches.

* * *

Halloween came and went and it was very strange for Harry to be in the dorm by himself. A lot of Slytherin's were missing and having meals in the hall was especially strange. There were, of course, many from other houses who went home for the rituals too, but it seemed like most of Slytherin had gone while the other houses still had around more than half of their numbers. Harry was happier than he let on when everyone got back and made a promise to himself that he would somehow get the Dursley's sign that form this summer. The rituals sound kind of neat. Not to mention spending time in a manor which by all accounts is out of this world lavish, sounds like a hell of a good time.

Harry was working on a potions essay in the library when Draco and Theo walked up to his table. Draco looked absolutely livid, Theo looked resigned.

"You will not believe what that filthy blood traitor just did!" Draco plonked himself down onto a chair that was facing Harry. "One of those blasted Gryffs shot a jelly-legs curse at me and-"

"Pretty sure you just tripped over someone's bag-"

"It was a curse, Theo!" Draco shot a glare at Theo before turning back to Harry. Theo rolled his eyes and gave Harry a long-suffering look. "anyway after that wore off, Weasley had the nerve, the absolute cheek! To laugh!" Harry tried his damnedest not to laugh himself, Draco was a drama queen and a half.

"Ye, tell him what you bloody did then" Oh god, Harry didn't have a good feeling about this.

"Well, I challenged him to a duel! We will soon see who will be laughing" oh lord. "oh! I made you my second by the way Harry"

"What!"

"Don't worry you won't have to do anything, I'm going to beat his ass!" Both Harry and Theo let out a loud sigh.

* * *

Draco had organized the duel to happen out by the lake the next afternoon, so after a night and morning of hearing Draco brag about his prowess and complain about Weasley, Harry thinks everyone in Slytherin will be happy when it's finally over. After dinner, a group of Gryffindors and a group of Slytherin's made their way to the lake. If any of the teachers found this suspicious they didn't bother to get involved. It was a cloudy and cold day, but Harry was thankful that it was at least dry. The group walked along the lake until they thought they were a decent distance from the school that they wouldn't get caught.

Ron, along with Hermione, Neville, and Seamus walked up to where Draco and most of the other first-year Slytherins were standing.

"Alright Malfoy, no funny business, I know what you lot are like." Harry would have taken more offense to this if it wasn't for the fact that Gregg, Pansy, and Blaise had come to Draco with plans to ensure a win, and for a moment Draco had considered them. To be honest so had Harry, a bit of the house rivalry may have rubbed off on Harry after all. In the end, they decided that cheating wouldn't be needed.

"Like I need to cheat to win a duel against you Weasley!" Ron and Draco then moved to the side of the lake, moved a few feet apart, and turned to face each other. Ron gave a half-hearted bow and Draco inclined his head slightly. They both took dueling stances and held them for a long moment. And then a moment more. It was then everyone realized that they hadn't specified a person to shout out the beginning of the duel, Harry coughed to cover a chuckle. In the end, Seamus simply shouted

"Fight already!" and the duel began.

Ron shot a bat bogey hex that Draco seamlessly avoided while also casting a jelly-legs curse at Ron who stumbled to the side but managed to 'finite' the curse rather quickly. Ron then sent a knock-back curse at Draco which sent him stumbling back a few feet before he righted himself. Thinking back on how his own knock-back curse can throw a person clear across the room into a wall without much effort on his part, Harry wasn't impressed, Draco seemed enraged by it though. With a snarl on his face, Draco whispered his next spell, one that Harry did not recognize. It hit Ron on his chest and at first, nothing seemed to happen and Harry thought that maybe Draco had misfired a spell, but then Ron started yelping and shaking around.

"Get them off! Get them off!" Ron started to jiggle around while letting out whimpers, and Harry wasn't the only one who was chuckling at the scene. What the hell did Draco do?

"Ron! Ron! It's not real! whatever you're seeing it's not there, it's in your mind! He has a mind magic affinity remember!" Since when were Hermione and Ron friends anyway? Ron continued to whimper.

"But-...there's spiders all over me!" By this point, Draco was almost doubled up with laughter and a lot of the spectators weren't much better.

"Ron! For goodness sake! there aren't really any spider-ah!" Hermione had to stop in order to duck as in his panic Ron had decided to start firing random spells here there and bloody everywhere it seemed. Everyone ducked and dived for cover and Harry looked up just in time to see Draco get hit with a spell that pushed him over and into the lake. Hermione had reached Ron and a 'Finite Incantatem' solved his spider problem and the spells stopped shooting everywhere. Harry went to stand by the lake and waited for Draco to come out, dreading his mood for when he did. He waited, and then waited another ten seconds, then started to panic slightly. Harry turned to Ron.

"What the bloody hell did you hit him with!"

"oh umm- I'm not sure –Petrificus totalus?" Harry's eyes widened in fear along with Hermione's. Draco won't be able to move!

"Fuck!" Without further thought, Harry pulled out his wand, cast a Lumos in preparation as he wouldn't be able to speak underwater and wasn't sure he could cast silently, and dived into the lake. The cloudy day meant that even with the light from his Lumos it was hard to see anything in the murky lake water. By some miracle, after only a little bit of swimming downwards, he spotted a flash of white blond hair not too far from where he was. Harry quickly swam towards it and it wasn't long before he got close enough to make out Draco's face, the fear and panic in Draco's eyes as he slowly sank further down into the water squeezed his insides. Harry grabbed Draco with the intention of pulling him up but he struggled a little with Draco's dead weight. He worried that he wouldn't be able to pull him up in time so he then silently canceled his Lumos and prayed with everything that he had that he could cast his next spell silently. He aimed a Finite Incantatem at Draco and put everything he had of his normal magic into it. Somehow his first ever attempt at silent spell-casting worked, Draco could move again and Harry thanked his lucky stars that he had been practicing that spell last week. Both he and Draco then swam to the surface of the lake were Draco took one large panicked breath after another. Some of the first years had made themselves scarce it seemed, but most of Draco's friends and Ron and Hermione were still there.

Harry dragged Draco to the shore and took the cloak that Theo handed to him and put it around him.

"Theo, go get Snape" Harry didn't want the Slytherin's taking the rap for this one, so he called the only teacher he trusted. Besides he is Draco's god-father after all. Draco still looked a little shaken but his breathing was getting better when Harry suddenly went numb. Not in fear. Not in shock. But with pure unadulterated rage. That idiot of a fucking wizard almost killed his friend because he thought it was a good idea to blast random ass spells around that he could hardly cast in the first place! Before he really knew what he was doing, Harry left Draco with Blaise, Gregg, and Daphne, and walked over to where Ron seemed to be getting a telling off from Hermione.

Ron only had a second to realize that Harry was coming to him, and only a split of a second after that to pale at his expression before Harry raised his fist and clocked him in the face hard enough for him to go down to the ground. Harry then dived on top of him and hit his face, again and again, hard enough for his knuckles to scream at him and to hear the crunch of bone. Hermione let out a short screech and tried to pull him off, but Harry wasn't in the right mind for it. Hell, he had even forgotten he was a wizard and that he was capable of hurting him a lot worse with his wand, something he would be glad for later.

Ron was moaning in pain and begging him to get off by the time two strong arms pulled Harry up from underneath his armpits.

"Enough!" Harry sagged in Snape's arms and it was only when he struggled to pull in a breath without it shuddering that he realized he was crying. "What. Is the meaning of this."

"H-h-He almost fucking killed Draco!" Harry felt Snape Stiffen.

"I'm going to let you go, you will not attack Mr. Weasley again" Harry took in a deep breath then averted his eyes from Ron who was still moaning on the ground. His face a mess of blood. If he looked at him, he would hit him again.

"Yes, sir" Snape released him and Harry quickly turned to look up at him so he wouldn't be looking at Ron. He then noticed that Theo was standing behind Snape wide-eyed.

"Mr. Nott please go and send Madam Pomfrey and Headmaster Dumbledore out here, in that order, understood" Theo nodded, give Harry a reassuring look and sprinted off. "Now, Mr. Potter explain, quickly" Harry explained the best he could in his state, and with the input that the other Slytherins and Hermione put in, who had eventually come to gather around Snape including a very pale and shaking Draco, they managed to give him a rather clear idea of the events. When they were done, Snape looked livid, though who that was aimed at, Harry couldn't be sure. He had just beaten a kid to a had the feeling he was in some serious trouble. Snape pulled out his wand and cast a spell, which much to the fascination and amazement of the group, made an ethereal, transparent and glowing doe appear, Snape started talking to it.

"Lucius, get to Hogwarts immediately, there has been a serious incident involving Draco." With that, the doe disappeared. Snape had just turned back to us when Madam Pomfrey came rushing over and straight to Ron who had since started to sit up.

"Oh dear! What's happened?" Madam Pomfrey started casting spells at Ron.

"When you are sure Ron is in no immediate danger Madam, I need you to look at Draco here, who very nearly drowned." He cast a glare at Ron then. Pomfrey gasped and quickly made her way to Draco and started casting spells on him, which Harry watched worriedly. Dumbledore soon joined them all looking as serene as ever.

"Everyone not directly involved in the incident should make their way your common rooms." Dumbledore then waited while everyone but, Draco, Ron, Hermione, and Harry left.

"Hermione was not directly involved Headmaster" Snape pointed out what Harry had been thinking. Nosy know-it-all.

"And you miss Granger, if we need any information from you we will speak to you later" Dumbledore directed, not unkindly.

"Yes sir" Hermione was obviously not very happy but made her way back to the castle anyway. Dumbledore then studied those left for a moment. Harry guiltily avoided his eyes.

"Right everyone to the infirmary"

* * *

The three of them were pushed to separate beds and Madam Pomfrey checked them all over and worked on healing Ron while Snape and Dumbledore went out into the hall. Harry was just about to go check on Draco when much to Harry's annoyance, Madam Pomfrey closed all the curtains between the beds.

Pomfrey was gone for a short while, presumably dealing with Draco and Ron, but soon joined Harry and began doing some checks even though he complained more than once that he was unharmed. She put some healing slave on his throbbing knuckles letting out disapproving tuts as she did so, then spelled his clothes dry and left him alone again.

He wasn't there long when he heard the infirmary doors open and voices drifted in.

"I wish to see my son Dumbledore, since he almost died in your care, you should be quick in allowing this"

"Of course, Mr. Malfoy...Madam Pomfrey, could you please show Mr. Malfoy to his son." There were footsteps then and Harry could hear murmuring coming from Draco's area.

It was at this point that he truly started panicking. What would he do if he got kicked out for this? He doesn't think he could survive without magic now that he knows of it. He would rather die than go back to his old life in that dingy cupboard again.

After around another fifteen minutes the curtains were pulled back and Harry saw that the infirmary now had Snape, Draco, Ron, Dumbledore and Lucius Malfoy who stood by Draco's bed with a hand on his shoulder. Harry caught Draco's eye and attempted to silently ask if he was ok, Draco lips pulled into a weak smile and gave a slight nod of his head. This at least gave Harry one less thing to worry about.

"Harry, Draco, , Let's head to my office" They all followed Dumbledore through the halls including Snape, who it seemed was inviting himself along as well.

* * *

Dumbledore's office was a mad room, and if Harry was in a different state of mind he would be fascinated by the knick-knacks all over the place and the many pictures of old headmasters on the walls, however, Harry just simply sat on the chair indicated and tried not fidget with nerves.

"I want that boy expelled" Announced Mr. Malfoy. Dumbledore sat back in his chair a little, seemingly relaxed.

"Now, Mr. Malfoy what happened was awful, but not entirely Ronal-"

"What happened nearly resulted in the death of my son!" Mr. Malfoy could be damn scary.

"That was not Mr. Weasley's intention-"

"I don't care what his intention was-" Dumbledore sat a bit more upright in his chair.

"Your son and Mr. Weasly organized a duel, which is against school rules, and that resulted in an accident where Draco's life was put in jeopardy. Both Mr. Weasley and Draco" With this Dumbledore sent a stern look at Draco who looked a little deflated "will be punished." Dumbledore then turned to Harry. "I'm afraid that your transgression Harry is a little more serious" Oh god, oh god. "assaulting a student to that degree, unprovoked-" Wait what!

"Unprovoked! That boy he assaulted had almost killed someone he considers a friend, and judging from my son's letters, a very close friend at that. I would not call that unprovoked!" Harry looked at Mr. Malfoy who looked livid. Well said!

"I understand-"

"Mr. Potter here saved my son's life! If you are planning on a severe punishment I will take this up with the board!" Draco sent a wide-eyed look at Harry.

"If I may Headmaster" Harry had forgotten Snape was even there, lurking in the back as he was. "Mr. Potter was in an emotional state when I got there and...separated him from Mr. Weasley, I believe he was genuinely frightened and affected by Draco's… accident" he said the last word with a sneer, clearly showing his opinion on whether it should be called that. "I believe in other circumstances he would not have reacted as he did" Dumbledore give Snape a long look, then transferred those piercing eyes onto Harry. Harry wasn't sure if he should speak, but he wasn't going to let himself get expelled while he just sat there like a lemon.

"Sir…I was very upset and I believe that if I truly wanted to do damage to Weasley, I would have used my wand." Best not to mention that the reason that he didn't was more because it didn't occur to him, rather than not wanting to hurt Ron too badly. At the time, Harry really wanted to hurt the fuckwit. In fact he still kind of did. Dumbledore looked at Harry a moment longer with eyes that twinkled.

"I believe you showed great courage and loyalty today by saving Draco, and I can understand that you were upset when you attacked Mr. Weasley. You will serve detention along with Draco and Ron however, and I expect you to work on handling your emotions better." Harry would. Next time he would try to hold in his temper then think of a form of revenge he can do later without getting caught.

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Draco and Harry were at the gargoyle which acted as the entrance to Dumbledors office waiting for Mr. Malfoy to come out so Draco could say goodbye.

"You did you know" Harry blinked at Draco in confusion.

"What?" Draco shuffled his feet a little then looked at Harry in the eyes.

"You did...umm.. save my life, Thank you Harry" Oh!

"of course, ummm, anytime" Draco snorted and they both giggled a little, not really knowing what they were laughing at. It felt good all the same.

"You beat him up for me" Draco was smirking at him now.

"Ye, guess I did" Harry smirked back at him.

"My dad was right you know" Draco looked uncomfortable again "You are a close friend...like, your my best friend you know" Draco shrugged and sniffed and looked away from Harry like it wasn't a big deal. Harry felt a warmth spread from his belly.

"Well...your my best friend too...to be honest Drake" Harry looked around the hall to make sure they were still alone "I lied in there you know, I really wanted to hurt that bastard Ron, I know he didn't mean to do it, but his idiocy almost got you killed! And that-" Harry took a deep breath "It pissed me off to say the least, if I was thinking more I might have used my wand, and god knows what damage I might have caused to him then, and...well...I think I only would have regretted it because of what it would mean for me, rather than what it would mean for him" Thinking about it, that's a rather scary thing. Harry is learning more spells every day, a lot of those spells can be used to hurt someone and Harry has just realized that he may be more willing to do that than he thought. Somehow Draco managed to not only pick up on Harry's concern but to understand what that concern was over.

"That's not a bad thing, you being willing to hurt someone to protect your friends, that doesn't sound like something a bad person would do, I know I would do it, I know Theo would, Crabbe, Daphne, hell maybe even bloody Weasley! And I would beat up someone for you too." Sometimes Draco surprises him. Harry tends to forget that the bratty, spoiled and vain boy that Harry somehow finds endearing can also be a helpful, loyal, and smart friend. Though Harry had to admit to himself that he wasn't protecting Draco when he beat up Ron, more like avenging him. Harry just got so angry. He has always had a bit of a temper. Still nice to know Draco would do the same.

"Well...I guess we've got each other's backs then don't we." It was silent a moment before Draco spoke up again.

"So… I won that duel, right? I mean... I know he knocked me into the lake and all, but that was an accident, so it doesn't count, I had him with that mind curse! Right, Harry?" Oh boy.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The lake incident meant that Harry and Draco had to suffer a week of detention with Snape. The first detention was not pleasant to say the least as Snape was not impressed with their 'foolhardy, emotional tantrums' and had the opinion that they should deal with problems with other houses in a more 'Slytherin manner' not with an 'against the school rules duel in front of a bunch of witnesses'. After the lecture, he had them cleaning cauldrons that had a brown-black sticky residue that stank like a mixture of the London sewers and, for some unfathomable reason, vinegar. Both Harry and Draco walked out of the potions classroom with watery eyes, sore hands and a smell that caused everyone they came across to give them a wide berth. They both dreaded having to do similar jobs for the next six days but were pleasantly surprised to find that Snape simply had them work on homework or study for the rest of their detentions, something Harry probably would have done anyway. Gotta love a bit of Slytherin favouritism, heaven knows they won't get that from any other teacher. Luckily their last detention ended a day before the Quidditch match and Harry was really excited about going to see it, not only would it be his first time seeing one, but the match was Gryffindor vs Slytherin and Harry was well and truly caught up in the house rivalries now.

A few days after hurting Weasley, Harry had felt a bit of guilt creep up on him especially considering the idiot really didn't intend to put Draco in that much danger, however that guilt didn't get the chance to build into anything concrete as Weasley and his buddies snide remarks and dark glares had ended up angering him all over again. He didn't even apologise! He just kept going around acting like he's the victim in all this and that the 'evil snakes' were the bad guys. Well, fuck him. Harry was really hoping that Slytherin won the match, as he did not want to put up with smug looks from the bloody lions.

After classes on the day of the match, Harry was walking into his dormitory when he was hit in the face with something soft.

"Put that on Harry!" Harry, who had instinctively caught the object that was flung at him, pulled it from his face to discover a Slytherin hat, scarf, and gloves. He also noticed that Draco, who was the one who chucked the items at Harry, was wearing his own set and he noticed that Theo, who was also in the room, was wearing the scarf and gloves. Knowing Theo he had probably refused the hat in order to protect his 'artfully disheveled hair' that took him forever to do each morning.

"Whose are these?"

"Yours of course! I got mother to send them to us" Harry had been meaning to buy himself a set, but he actually keeps forgetting that he has plenty of money now and thus it kept slipping his mind.

"I'll give you the money for them" Draco snorts dismissively, then smirks.

"Tell you what, you can try giving my mother the money for them when you see her" judging by the look on Draco's face that wouldn't be pleasant for Harry. Deciding to just leave it, he put on the items. They were really soft and warm.

"Thanks, Draco." Draco shrugged at Harry and then started herding him back from the dormitory.

"Come on, let's go. Merlin! we better beat the Gryffs today or I'm going to be mightily pissed."

"We still have like forty-five minutes yet!" Draco was practically pushing Harry out the common room door.

"I want to make sure we get a good place up front! Come on!" He then started a fast march up the corridor. Shooting in-patient scowls over his shoulder at Harry's more sedate pace. Eventually, he stopped altogether and dramatically threw his arms up in frustration and walked back to Harry and started pulling on his arm to make him walk faster.

"Alright alright, I'm bloody coming!" Harry shouted part in exasperation and part amusement.

–

* * *

Turns out it was lucky that they had left when they did as the Quidditch viewing booths were filling quickly. Harry and Draco jogged up the many stairs to the Slytherin viewing platform, leaving them both heaving for breath, but they did manage to get a space up front which made it worth it.

"Do you think we will win?" Harry knew the basics of Quidditch but wasn't sure what their team or the Gryffs team was like.

"Our team is awesome!" Draco paused a moment then grudgingly added "The Gryffs one isn't bad...Those blasted twins can be lethal as beaters, but their star seeker left last year and the rumour is that they haven't found a very good replacement, just some second year who is barely acceptable."

"Is our seeker any good?"

"I've heard he is pretty good" Draco lowered his voice a little "Not great though, but as long as no other teams have a great seeker I think we could have a chance at the cup this year."

The stands filled quickly and soon it was almost time for the game to begin. Harry bounced in his seat a little as he felt the building excitement in his stomach. He had settled pretty quickly into wizarding school, but sometimes the amazement of magic being real caught him all over again and seeing a sports game where there will be people flying on brooms is one instance that the awe of seeing something that should not be possible settles over him once more.

Harry was watching the pitch for any activity whilst munching on some chocolate frogs, when there was a loud bang and then some sort of blue dust started to rain down on the Slytherins from the roof of the viewing booth. Before anyone had a chance to react beyond jumping and yelping in their seats, suddenly everything became very red. All their clothes, scarfs, hats, and uniforms. Red. The banners and signs that were Slytherin green. Red. All the snake motifs. Now Lions. Harry turned to Draco who was not only decked out in Gryffindor colours and merchandise but had a large, fluffy lion hat on his head. After a moment of staring at the monstrosity in horror Harry suddenly felt a suspicious weight on his own head and judging by the horror-filled glance that Draco was sending him, he summarised he was now sporting something similar. Amid the exclamations of confusion, anger, and dismay, Harry heard laughter coming from somewhere. He looked around and soon spotted two people on brooms quickly making their way back to the ground. Two red-headed someones. "Fucking Weasleys!".

Despite the cold, the Slytherins all started to strip back to their inoffensive white shirts. A sixth year Slytherin then stood up and addressed everyone.

"Alright, everyone! brave out the cold and support the team, don't give those fuckers the satisfaction of us having to leave... or worse having to wear that bloody red!" He turned to Draco and Harry then "And get those bloody hats off!"

The thing was that Harry was bloody trying to take it off, but it just wouldn't budge. Looking around he noticed that it was only him and Draco that seemed to be wearing the hats, seemed the twins were getting a little vengeance for the lake incident.

Harry took out his wand and decided to try a 'Finit incantatem'. It didn't work. In fact, it made things worse. A lot worse. The Lion on his hat let out a roar loud enough to make his ears ring and then started intoning in a deep voice "Go Go Gryffindor! Go Go Gryffindor!" non-stop. It just kept chanting.

The Slytherins turned to Harry with various degrees of incredulous horror written on their faces. Some of the older years pushed their way to the front to try and help to get the hat off. One particular sixth year was enthusiastic enough in his effort that Harry feared his head was going to pop off his body.

"Alright stop! it's not coming off OW!" A fifth-year, who was sitting next to Draco, then pointed his wand at Draco's head.

"It's probably a simple sticking charm." He cast a spell at Draco's hat despite Harry's shouted "No!" and then they had two stuffed Lion's roaring and chanting for Gryffindor.

–

* * *

They ended up having to miss three-quarters of the match as they had to find someone to undo whatever the hell had been done to the hats. Most of the teachers were out watching the match in their own viewing booth and they wanted to avoid having to walk through most of the school populace with the blasted things on their heads, roaring and shouting as they went, therefore they ended up going to Madam Pomfrey. Within seconds she managed to silence the hats, but getting them off their heads was a bit more of a challenge and by the time it was done, and Harry and Draco had run their way back to the pitch, most of the action had been and gone. They got back to the booth just in time too see the last goal (a Slytherin goal) and see the Slytherin seeker catch the snitch. So at least they won. Though as Harry lay in the dormitory listening to Blaise and Theo excitedly recount the match he found that that fact didn't make him feel all that better.

"I can't believe that I missed most of my first ever Quidditch match!" Damn those twins to hell!

"I know! it was so epic too!" Both Harry and Draco shot a glare at Theo while Blaise grimaced a little."Uh… I mean...there will be others?" Harry rolled his eyes and lay back on his bed with his hands behind his head.

"Those fucking Weasleys! Ron almost killed me, then the twins prank us in revenge! Monsters the lot of them!" Draco seemed angrier than Harry, which was saying something.

"Think they were probably getting back at the fact that Harry beat u-"

"That doesn't matter Blaise! Harry hit Ron in revenge for what he did to me, that makes it equal, now they've made it… un-equal"

"We will just have to do something to them to make it equal again then won't we" Harry's words caused Blaise to groan.

"Don't encourage him, Harry!"

"No, I think he's right" This came from Theo "We can't just let them get away with it, they pranked most of Slytherin, if we don't get them back, then that will just look bad"

"Yes! We will get them back!" Draco had sat up in bed as if ready to go this second. Blaise just rolled his eyes.

"...How exactly?" Theo's words seem to deflate Draco, and he lay back into bed with a huff.

"We will think of something" Harry sounded as determined as he felt, and he got two determined nods from Theo and Draco in reply and another sigh from Blaise.

–

* * *

A couple of days later and they still hadn't come up with anything they could do for vengeance, the fact that the group of them had been in school for just over two months and thus don't know all that many spells seriously lowered their options. Harry would also like to avoid getting in trouble, so simply blasting the buggers into walls is a no go as well. No matter how tempting that may be.

Harry was sitting in the Common room with Draco, where they were discussing whether the library would have any books on pranking when Flint made his way over to them.

"Hey, since Quirrell is such a joke, Snape has given permission for you guys to start practicing defense against the dark arts here, Gemma is holding practice for first and second years on Thursday nights. Cool?" Harry was already practicing in his affinity lessons but figured it wouldn't hurt to turn up to some of them for some extra practice too.

"Sure" After getting Harry's answer Flint then moved on to the next group of students. Harry turned back to Draco to see that he looked a little uplifted.

"That would be cool, I hope they get us to duel each other, I have some things I want to try out from my affinity lessons, you gonna go to them?"

"Some of them… I've already been practicing the spells in my affinity lessons"

"Makes sense...still it would be good to actually use them on others from our year" He had a point, as long as Harry made sure not to go overboard it could be fun. Draco sighed then "But seriously what are we gonna do about the Weasley's, if we wait too long we will lose our window." Talking about his affinity lessons reminded Harry of something.

"Hey! My invisibility cloak." Harry had been so busy with studying and settling into the wizarding world he hadn't gotten the chance to use it yet. He owns an invisibility cloak and he hasn't bloody used it yet. Harry was ashamed of himself. After thinking for a moment something occurred to him. Lowering his voice in order to not to be overheard he shares his idea with Draco. "I bet they have books in the restricted section that could help us, and if we went at night and used my cloak we could get in there and take a look" Draco's eyes lit up with interest and excitement and he smirked at Harry.

–

* * *

That night they waited until late, then Harry and Draco got up and ready to go.

"Hey Theo, you coming or not?" Draco asked in a rather loud whisper, Theo simply grumbled and turned over in bed. Draco frowned, looked around the rather messy room, then grabbed a sock that was on the floor and threw it at Theo's face. It didn't make much of an impact since it was a bloody sock. Harry's bloody sock actually. Harry sighed, shot Draco an exasperated look then went over to Theo to wake him up. He had said earlier that night that he wanted to come, and was quite adamant about it when he found out about Harry's invisibility cloak.

Harry shook Theo gently at first but soon got fed up with the lack of response and eventually shoved him almost hard enough for him to fall out of bed.

"What?!" He finally awoke, however it seems that Draco and Harry had also woken up Blaise.

"For Merlin sake Theo! Get up and go do whatever the hell it is you three are doing so I can get back to bloody sleep!" Heaven forbid he didn't get his beauty sleep.

"I'm up, I'm up"

The three of them were soon by the doors of the common room. Though some were more alert than others.

"Why did we have to wait until so late" Theo was whiny when he was woken up that's for sure.

"So no one else would be up and about you dimwit, you were all for that earlier" Harry replied

"That was before I had my sleep disturbed" Harry sighed.

"well no one is forcing you to come, me and Draco can go our selves"

"NO! I-"

"SSSHHHH!" Christ on a cracker, this was already a bit more of a pain than he thought it was going to be and they haven't even left the common room yet. "Were suppose to be sneaking here, for god's sake your a Slytherin, start acting like one."

"right...sorry" At least he looked a little ashamed. Harry unfolded his cloak and then looked at the other two.

"uhhh...right I guess we will just after huddle close so we will all fit"

"Draco will like that" Theo mumbled under his breath, apparently not quiet enough though.

"What's that suppose to mean?" Draco whisper shouted with a dark glare on his face. Harry has to admit that Draco can come across as rather...camp at times. It's all the dramatics.

"Nothing" Theo was clearly trying to hold in a smirk. Draco harrumphed and after sending another narrow glare at Theo, made his way to Harry's right side. Though not that close. Theo then got close to his left and Harry pulled the cloak over them. Well, he attempted to.

"Draco you're going to have to come closer than that." There was a pause, then Draco shuffled a little closer. Harry sighed. This night had the makings of a nightmare. "Don't worry about what Theo said, he was only joking, and besides it wouldn't matter if you were-"

"I'm not!"

"Right well get over here then!" Now it was Harry whose voice was rising a little, he grimaced at himself. Theo poked his head back out of the invisibility cloak in order to look at Draco.

"Look I didn't mean anything by it alright? I'm sorry... now come cuddle up to us you plonker, I don't want Harry getting ideas with it only being the two of us in here and all" Draco tried to look like he was still pissed but his lip twitched slightly and he finally pushed himself close to Harry's right side and Harry was able to cover them all.

It was dark in the dungeon corridors but they decided that using a Lumos would defeat the purpose of being invisible so they made do with the dim glow from the lanterns. It was tricky at first to coordinate their walking while keeping everyone covered and there were a few stepping on toes incidents, but they eventually got the hang of it. It still took them longer than it usually did to get to the library, however, and since they didn't actually encounter another living soul, or dead ones for that matter, the extra effort was essentially pointless.

They made their way to the restricted section, still covered in the cloak. The section was caged in with a padlock on the gate, Harry had known that though and had looked up an unlocking spell. He pulled out his wand and pointed it at the lock, "Alohomora!"...Nothing happened. Harry looked to the padlock, then at his wand, then at the padlock again. "huh" Theo sighed.

"You didn't think that they would lock this section off with a lock that can be opened with a first-year unlocking spell did you?" Yes. He had thought that. Harry resisted the urge to smack himself in the head.

"Do you know a way in?" Theo frowned in thought.

"There is Portaberto, but that may be loud and it leaves a smoking hole that could draw attention...hang on" Theo pulled out his wand, then did some quick jerky movements with it and pointed it at his left hand whispering a spell. He then flexed his fingers a little, grabbed the lock and broke the metal in half like it was putty. Harry and Draco gasped.

"What did you do?" Theo looked smug.

"I've been practicing that for the past two affinity lessons" Harry hadn't really put much thought into what the others with affinities were doing in their lessons, until now that is. He wonders what other physical spells Theo been learning. Not the time to ask however.

They made their way into the section and Harry got that excited but nervous feeling in his stomach that he got whenever he was doing something he knew he shouldn't be. They walked up to the first row of books.

"Shit, I can't read a thing" Theo was right, it was too dark, they would have to risk it.

"Someone cast a Lumos" Harry ordered. Draco pulled out his wand, poked it out of the cloak and cast the charm, but it was bright enough to light up the whole fucking room.

"Put it out, put it out" Harry urged quietly and quickly pulled Draco's arm back under the cloak.

"Nox" Draco sent a glare at Harry. "you were the one who told me to cast it"

"Ye, but not that brightly" Harry struggled to not to raise his voice.

"I don't know how to control how bloody light it is, we didn't go over that in defense"

"Well no...but you just control how much magic you put into it" Draco looked at Harry blankly and Harry turned to look at Theo who was looking just as lost.

"You know how to do that?" Theo asked.

"Well...ye, Yaxley taught me to control magic strength so that when I practice defense with my school year I won't go blasting them to pieces with strong offensive spells...I thought that might have been something you all already knew how to do, but I didn't since I grew up with muggles?" Theo and Draco looked to each other and then back at Harry.

"Nope, though I'm definitely going to ask my affinity teacher about teaching me" Theo looked a little put-out, and Draco nodded in agreement.

"Why don't they teach that in class" Harry wondered aloud.

"They do later on I think...or maybe we just learn it naturally as we grow and get used to practicing magic?" Draco frowned in thought and Harry realized that they were in the bloody restricted section at nearly one in the morning, it was so not the time for this.

"Let me cast the charm… let's switch places though, it will be easier with me on the end." With a bit of creative maneuvering in an effort to stay under the cloak, he and Draco managed to switch places. It wasn't until he was resituated that he realized that the extra effort was pointless since between the Lumos and their blabbering if anyone was there they would know they were there too by now. Oh well.

Harry cast a weak Lumos that was just bright enough to read by if he pointed his wand close to the spines, then started to read.

"Hey, Harry" Theo whispered.

"Mmmm"

"Did you really have to learn how _not_ to blast things to pieces?" Harry turned from the books to see both Draco and Theo looking at him.

"Well...kinda, when I first used my affinity magic I lifted a dummy from the ground and dropped it hard enough for it smash to pieces."

"Wicked" Draco smirked at Harry and Theo just stared at him with eyes slightly widened. Harry blushed a little.

"I don't know why you two are looking so impressed, I bet you have been doing things in your lessons that I have no hope of achieving anytime soon." Theo and Draco shared a smirk then.

"That's true" Seriously though why did Harry keep getting dragged into conversations right now!

"Right, could you two just bloody help me here, we're going to be here all night at this rate...I think these books are on history and stuff, let's try a different shelf."

After a bit of looking around they eventually found themselves in one of the further rows of shelves where it was even more dimly lit than the rest of the place. There they managed to find some books that sounded promising, including Harry's favourite pick, _A Hundred Ways to Shame your Foe_ , Harry was just about to call it a night when Draco opened a book to his right and it let out a piercing scream loud enough to wake the dead, he quickly slammed it closed but Harry feared the damage was done.

By this point they had gotten a little lax with hiding and thus the cloak was draped around Harry's shoulders and not covering his head, Draco was a little ways down from him completed uncovered, and Theo had found himself a lantern and was actually in the next shelf over, thus when they heard rushing footsteps coming in their direction, it was a panicked scramble. Theo quickly doused the lantern and ran to Harry's side, Harry shoved the three books they had picked into the bag he had brought, hauled the bag onto his shoulders, then started to pull the cloak back in order, by this point Draco had returned the evil god-damn book to the shelf and had made it back to Harry's side.

"Quick" He was moving as bloody quick as he could! Thank you very much.

Harry managed to get the cloak settled around them all just in time for the library doors to slam open and a panting filch to come in. He briskly hobbled his way to the entrance to the restricted section.

"Who's there!" He squinted his eyes at the broken padlock and made his way in "I know you're in here! Come out!" Oh god Oh god. Harry tried to control his breathing while Draco clung to him like a limpet and Theo stood stock still. Actually, was he even breathing?

Filtch started to make his way up each shelf of the restricted section and Harry got Draco and Theo's attention and started guiding them slowly out of the shelf row they were in and into the wider walkway. They started to make their way to the entrance when Filtch, who they had lost track of, came out from between two shelves not three feet in front of them. They all froze and held their breath. Filtch frowned, looked around, then started to make his way to the shelf on the opposite side.

"Come out now!" The three of them slowly let out the breath they were holding and carried on their way. Once they made it outside the library door, by some unspoken agreement, the three of them legged it up the corridor, uncaring about their flapping exposed limbs, and they didn't stop into they found an alcove not too far from the stairs down to the dungeons. The three stood to catch their breath.

"Holy shit! That was close" Theo was right about that. "What bloody book did you open?" he asked Draco.

"I don't know, it must have had an age restriction charm on it or something..." Draco cast a glance at the bag on Harry's back."You don't think they're going to do that do you?" Harry frowned trying to think back to whether they had opened the other books back at the library.

"I think I opened one of them" Harry remembered he had read a little of the introduction to his favourite pick.

"We will just have to hope the other two don't scream bloody murder when we open them then" Theo was not wrong, that would be problematic.

They had all just re-settled underneath the cloak when they heard a crash and bang in a classroom not far from where they stood and they all jumped into the air. They then heard the unmistakable giggle of peeves the unfriendly poltergeist. Harry groaned.

"Christ, let's not get caught up in any of his trouble" Draco and Theo agreed and they ended up running all the way back to their common room. By the time they reached it, Harry was both fed up and exhausted.

"Let's just go to bed, we can look at the books tomorrow" Draco and Theo happily agreed and the three made their way up to their dormitory. Harry fell asleep within seconds of his head hitting the pillow.

* * *

The next morning was thankfully a Saturday and Harry was able to sleep in. He was, therefore, raring to go when Draco, Theo and he settled down in their beds in their rather messy dorm room to read the books. He had handed one out to each of them, keeping the _A Hundred Ways to Shame your Foe_ for himself. They wasted no time in starting.

It wasn't long before Harry realised that the book title was misleading to say the least. The book should be called something along the lines of A Hundred Ways to maim/seriously injure/maybe kill your Foe. He didn't think that cursing the twins with a spell that 'caused second-degree burns on fifty percent of the body' or that would 'make bones brittle enough to snap with little force' was a level response to making a lion hat get stuck on his head. Not to mention the spells were complicated and tough to master, well beyond his two and a half month experience that was for sure. Not that he would want to use most of the spells in this book. Not unless it was a life and death situation anyway. Definitely not for some vengeance to a prank. Why the bloody hell does a school have this kind of book anyway, restricted section or not, it wasn't exactly hard for them to get into, and their first years for Christ sake! Harry snuck a look at Draco and Theo. Draco was rather pale looking and Theo was frowning in annoyance. Harry sighed.

"My book is not only way beyond our level, but most of the spells in here would either kill or seriously hurt the twins…I can't believe they have this in a school" Draco looked up at Harry.

"Mine is not much better, it's just a description of old-style duels from like, hundreds of years ago, they fought to the death then." Harry's eyes widened and he looked at the spine of Draco's book, _How they used to defeat opponents_. Ok, maybe that title made a little more sense, they probably should have skimmed it a little before taking it. Draco and Harry both turned to look at Theo.

"Mine is not in English" Harry blinked at Theo.

"We've been here for over half an hour! What have you been doing? Why didn't you say anything?" Good lord the whole lot of them were idiots! They picked a book that was in..."What language is it in anyway?"

"Don't know, I was looking at the drawings, don't think we would want any of the spells in here anyway, pretty sure this one" he held up a sketch for them to see "shows one guy disemboweling another" .Fuck.

"Right...give me the fucking books, I'll take them back at some point, we will have to think of something else to do to the twins ourselves"

"We probably would have had more luck in the normal section of the library, I mean they have fiction books, why not a few harmless pranking spellbooks?" Harry put his head in his hands. He honestly can't decide who has been the biggest fool out of them all.

"Why didn't you say that before we-!" Harry took in a deep breath."Right then, we'll go down to the library and look for a book like that then" Both Draco and Theo got up from their beds in order to hand Harry the books, once they did he shoved them back into his bag.

"I think I have an idea actually" Draco settled down to sit crossed legged on Harry's bed, and Theo shrugged and sat on the edge.

"Oh ye?" Harry asked.

"mmmm, what if I could do something like I did with Ron in the duel"

"Mess with their minds a little?" Harry liked the sound of that. Though he wished at least one of them had come up with it sooner.

"It is my forte after all...and it's the twins were talking about, so if they start raving...say at the hall during dinner, the teachers will think they're doing some sort of prank and not even think about blaming anyone else, never mind us." Risk-free, he likes that.

"What can you do?" Both Theo and Harry leaned unconsciously closer to Draco.

"Well, they made us those lions...we should make them see some snakes, it's only fair" The three looked at each other then and smirked. Harry resisted the urge to cackle.

* * *

On Monday after the second dinner in a row where the twins had been absent,(where the bloody hell were they eating?!) Harry was in his affinity lesson with Yaxley practicing the severing charm. He was slicing the dummy into ribbons and wondering why this spell was only a second-year spell when Yaxley called his name. Harry turned around to look at him and his stomach sank. Yaxley was holding one of the books from the restricted section that Harry hadn't gotten around to putting back yet, he had forgotten they were even in his bag until he saw them during the start of his first class that morning. They must have fallen out of his bag a little when he went digging for his affinity notebook earlier on.

"Do you mind explaining to me why you have these books and where you got them from?" oh fuck.

"Ummm… w-" Best not to get Draco and Theo dragged into trouble too if he can help it. "-I got them from the restricted section." Yaxley's eyebrows rose.

"and why were you in there" He shot a look at the books again "And why these books, I didn't know you could speak middle Persian" Harry blinked.

"Wait, that's what that language is?" Yaxley just gave him a look, and Harry sighed. "I didn't mean to get those books, I swear, I was just looking for some spells I could use to get some people back for pranking me, once I had started reading them and saw what those books were about, I stopped reading and I plan to take them back." Yaxley nodded then looked thoughtful.

"How far into the books did you get?"

"I only skimmed a few chapters of A Hundred Ways to Shame your Foe," Yaxley opened that book up and skimmed it himself "I remember this, there are some nasty books in that far end of the restricted section, that's for sure, this one isn't so bad though" What. Yaxley must have noticed his incredulous look because he laughed out loud. "Not for your purpose of course, but in a different situation, where your life is at stake, or your fighting in a war...these spells could save your life" Harry had had an eerily similar thought when he was reading them. Yaxley studied Harry for a while.

"How about we make a deal Harry" Harry licked his lips in nervousness and nodded.

"How about I teach you some of these spells, not all, maybe not many, at least not this year, but some of them, and in exchange, you promise to never use them unless your life is in danger and you promise to not tell anyone that I am teaching you them." Harry thought for a moment. He had had flashes of fear about the things he was capable of now, and learning these spells would make him even more dangerous, but the fact was that other wizards were dangerous and powerful too. How many other wizards are there that know those spells from those books. Besides, he had seen glimpses of what Theo and Draco are capable of, it's pretty impressive, he doesn't think they would hesitate to further their power. Harry doesn't want to feel vulnerable like he did when he first got into the wizarding world as clueless as a baby, or as he is with the Dursley's, he wants to feel strong. Powerful. That's one of the main reasons why he's been studying so hard after all.

"ye ok, I promise not to tell anyone, or use any dangerous spells unless my life is in danger." Yaxley smiled at him.

–

* * *

The next day at dinner, the twins were there. Harry shared a look with Theo and Draco and carried on as normal until the hall was full. Harry was sat next to Draco facing the Gryffs table, and so he felt it when Draco dug into his robes to get his wand. Harry's robe was already folded up and placed strategically on the table, and Draco used that as cover by pushing his wand and arm through the folded robe so that just the end of his wand poked through, pointing at the Gryffindor table. Daphne, who was sitting opposite them, noticed the movement and shot a look at them, Harry winked at her and she turned to look at the Gryffindor table then back and smirked at them both before she turned to casually talk to Pansy. Slytherin through and through that one. Harry didn't catch when Draco cast his spell, he did catch the loud yell and yelp that came from the Gryffindor table though, most of the school did in fact.

One of the twins had jumped up and away from the table and was pointing at the table with horror-filled eyes while the other twin had jumped on top of the bench and was pointing in horror at the other twin.

"Snake!" They both shouted in unison. The other Gryffindors and a few Hufflepuffs jumped at their exclamations then quickly scanned the table, only to look back up at them in confusion.

"Don't just bloody sit there, move!" The twin that had backed away now moved towards the bench and pulled a dark-haired girl up from under her armpits and practically threw her from the table.

"It was right next to you, are you blind! everyone move away!" The girl got back up from where she had landed, rubbing her elbow, and marched to the twin and smacked him soundly on the face.

"I am not in the mood for your games Fred!" Fred didn't have a chance to recover since the other twin suddenly dived over the table and tackled him to the ground.

"It's on your neck, Fred!"

"Get off! It's on the fucking table, you idiot! it's going for Ron!" Draco, Theo and Harry were nearly in hysterics at this point, the rest of the Slytherins weren't much better off, especially after the slap.

From the corner of his eye, Harry saw McGonagall get up from her seat and he turned to watch her. She marched from the head table and stood over the twins, lips a thin line and both hands on her hips. Harry nudged Draco in a signal to knock it off.

"Stop it this instant! Both of you follow me!" Both boys were panting on the floor now, looking around, and at each other in confusion."Now!"

At McGonagall's outburst, they both jumped up and started to follow her out of the hall, before they left, however, they looked back at the Slytherin table and Harry could have sworn that one of them nodded in their direction.

"There now were even," Draco said through his giggles.

* * *

Before Harry knew it, Christmas was just around the corner. After the pranking things had gotten quiet, well...As quiet as they get in a magical school anyway. Harry had been studying hard enough to get teased by both Draco and Theo about being a swat, and despite a few hostile run-ins with some Gryffindors they had managed to avoid getting into trouble. Defence practice with prefect Gemma and the rest of the first years proved to be worthwhile and fun. She did have them dueling each other and Harry was clearly more advanced in offensive spells, but he soon discovered that he was lacking in the defense department. He could get by with dodging most spells since he was small and limber, but Harry has now made it a point to start practicing some defense shields since he didn't want to have such an obvious weakness. Draco has also proved himself formidable with his developing mind tricks, though he has made it a point not to use those against Harry when their partnered against each other, and Harry had tried to go easy on his affinity spells in return, though he can't avoid them completely like him, since then he would have to avoid all offensive spells. In a duel. Which would be tricky, to say the least.

Harry had also taken to exploring the castle at night with his invisibility cloak, sometimes alone, sometimes with Draco or Theo, sometimes with them both. They had discovered a few hidden walkways and stairs behind tapestries that helps them navigate to classes better, and they had found a passage behind a mirror on the fourth floor which seemed to lead out of the castle. One night they had begun to walk down it when they came across an area that had been caved in, much to their disappointment. Since Draco and Theo were able to convince their parents to allow them to stay at Hogwarts for the Christmas holidays and they plan to see if they can find any more passages now that the school has a lot fewer people roaming around.

Harry had never had a reason to be excited about Christmas before, but even he had to admit that the decorations, the trees, the caroling ghosts, and just the general feeling around the school at this time of year was making him feel a little jolly. Draco was giddy with excitement and spent more time than Harry would like contemplating all the presents he would be getting from his parents.

Harry had managed to place some owl orders with the help of his stunning Aura, and had gotten Draco, Theo, and Blaise a bag full of a variety of sweets. He had also gotten Draco a snow globe that had an ornate dark purple stand and an intricate silver metal snake with ruby red eyes that slithered within the globe. When you shook it, the snake would hiss in displeasure and attack the glass and the water would turn a translucent red with black smoky clouds. Harry thought it was such a silly and dark design for a snow globe that he had to get it. He figured Draco would get a kick out of it too. For Theo he had also gotten him an expensive hair product that the catalogue had said would 'give you perfection and shine, in half the time', which he figured he would appreciate since he had been growing his hair out and was spending more and more time in front of the mirror each morning because of it. He had gotten one for himself too, but hadn't been bothered to try it, and figured he probably never would, he just doesn't think it's worth the effort.

It was getting late on Christmas Eve night and Theo, Draco, and Harry were sitting on the comfortable sofas around the main fire in the common room, a spot they didn't usually get a chance to enjoy, but with only five Slytherins staying at Hogwarts for Christmas and the other two were a seventh-year couple who were spending most of the time alone, it meant they had free reign of the space.

"When do you think we should go exploring again?" Harry was rather enjoying his late-night wanderings, there was so much to discover in the castle, so many secrets and magic, and not to mention that finding a secret way out could be handy. He wasn't sure what for, or where he would go, or why it would be handy exactly… But hell it was fun to look for one all the same. Draco, who was sprawled out rather inelegantly on one sofa turned his head to look at Harry, who was sitting on the floor with his back leaning on the sofa that Draco was laying on.

"We should go tomorrow after everyone is all tired out for the day and sleeping" Sounds good to Harry.

"We are seriously pushing our luck you know, we've almost been caught multiple times" Theo wasn't wrong, they had had a few close calls with Filtch, prefects, and on one memorable occasion, Snape.

"True, but almost being caught isn't the same as being caught is it? my cloak has saved us so far." Theo, who was sitting on the other sofa, sighed, but Harry caught the small smile that he had on his face. Theo was enjoying their little adventures too.

The three of them sat in comfortable silence for a while simply enjoying the quiet night and the warmth of the flickering fire. The quiet was disturbed when the common room door opened and a tall girl with dirty blond hair and an even taller guy with brown hair walked in with their arms clutched around each other, the girl was giggling quietly and the boy had a secretive pleased smile on his face. If that wasn't a big enough clue as to what they had been up to, the state of the girl's hair, the shirt that was buttoned up wrong on the guy, and the tell-tale mark on the girl's neck would have filled in any gaps. Once they noticed the three boys staring and in Harry's case, smirking at them, they jumped a little. The girl blushed, but the boy who had caught Harry's smirk winked at him. Harry sniggered quietly.

"Come on boys, let's go to bed" Best to leave them to it.

–

* * *

Harry was pulled from his deep sleep the next morning by Draco pouncing on his bed and shaking him.

"What?!"

"Come on Harry! It's Christmas! You have to get up so we can open the presents!" He then dived off the bed and ran from the room. Harry blinked, grabbed his glasses and looked over at Theo, who was up and putting on a robe and had an indulgent smile on his face.

"I swear sometimes that he regresses to a five year old" Harry snorted and got up, he wasn't really expecting presents, but rather liked the idea of having a proper Christmas morning. Besides, the least he could do was to indulge Draco a little since he was only staying here for him after all.

Harry was just putting on his slippers when he caught Theo shifting on his feet by the door where he was waiting for him. He could tease Draco all he wanted, but Theo wasn't as unaffected as he pretended to be. Hiding a smile, Harry rushed his morning wash and then he and Theo made their way downstairs to the Christmas tree where Draco had already started tearing into his presents. He looked up a little guiltily when he saw them come down.

"I only opened the one!... And another small one but that didn't really count" Harry laughed and sat down on the sofa while Theo wasted no time in digging under the tree for his own presents.

"It's fine Drake, you didn't have to wait." Draco smiled and started tearing into his other presents like a boy possessed.

"Go get yours Harry" Harry shifted uncomfortably thinking that there probably wouldn't be anything under there for him and he didn't want to ruin the mood by having to explain why, but then Theo pulled out a handful of presents and handed them over to Harry.

"These are yours" Harry's eyes went wide and after a second of hesitation, carefully pulled the colorful packages from Theo's arms. Harry was a lot slower in opening his presents than Draco and Theo were, and so they about finished opening them at the same time, despite the other boys having a lot more.

Harry had gotten a cool letter writing stationary set from Theo, so that he 'had no excuse not write over the summer' it had an assortment of different colored inks and wax, expensive feeling paper, and thick envelopes. From Draco, Harry had gotten a silver snake emblem robe pin that had emerald gems for its eyes which looked ornate and expensive, Draco's mother, much to Harry's surprise, had sent Harry a box of luxury chocolates with a note saying simply 'Thank you for looking out for my boy, I look forward to meeting you'. He had also gotten a picture of his parents in a simple frame from none other than Dumbledore, which Harry thought was more than a bit odd and so did Theo and Draco. Why was the Headmaster sending him a gift? and such a personal one at that. He appreciated it none the less. It was strange to see what his parents looked like for the first time, it gave him an unrecognisable feeling in his stomach, he really did look like his dad.

Draco loved his snow globe a lot more than Harry thought he would and Theo had used the hair product he had gotten him almost immediately and raved that it really did take him less time to do his hair. After presents they went to the hall where the ceiling was enchanted to show snowfall, it was mesmerizing and Harry often found himself getting lost in the view. Breakfast was a relaxed and joyful affair and Harry lost count of the number of mugs of hot chocolate he consumed. Though he figures one of the mugs only counts as half since he snorted some out from his nose after a particularly dry humored remark from Theo over the goings on with the only other two Slytherins currently in Hogwarts made Draco blush as red as a tomato and exclaim "But their not married!". Someone seriously needs to have a talk with Draco, Harry's not entirely sure that he doesn't still believe that babies come from storks. Overall Harry had an amazing Christmas morning and believed he would remember it for a long time to come.

That night, after a late morning snowball fight outside, a dinner where Harry ate until he was full to bursting, and a few games of wizard chess and exploding snap, the three boys made their way to bed with intention of getting up in a few hours to explore, however, they all fell asleep quickly and deeply and slept through the whole night. Still, Harry had no regrets.

–-

* * *

The night after Christmas the boys made up for the missed Christmas day exploration and made a point of staying awake, which they would later come to regret. They wandered under the cloak for two hours before finding anything interesting, but they did eventually come across a secret passage not far from their DADA classroom. It was behind a suit of armor and a tapestry showing a joyful medieval fair. The passage was a tunnel that was narrow, dirty, and had a damp musky smell to it. This didn't put the boys off and Harry removed the cloak and stored it back in his bag and they all excitingly walked down it, each coming up with outlandish ideas of where it could lead.

They must have only been walking for five minutes or so when Draco's leg got caught on something, causing him to trip forward. That something turned out to be a string. That string was connected to something that caused a blast of blue dye to squirt from the sides of the caves, drenching the three of them. It also caused a loud horn to sound out, somewhere further back in the tunnel closer to the entrance. The three boys legged it back the way they came only to discover Filtch standing at the entrance with a smug smile on this face.

It turned out that Filch was very much aware of that passage and had set booby traps up so that he could catch 'Wandering, rule-breaking children'. The boys ended up with three days detention and skin that had a blue tinge to it for almost a week, no matter how hard they scrubbed at it. They slowed down their late night exploring quite a lot after that.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Time seemed to fly by and before Harry knew it he was only a few weeks away from his end of year exams. He didn't know what to expect from a school of magic but he was not disappointed to how it turned out to be. He has had the time of his life here and believes he has also made good friends, especially in Theo and Draco, however he also has a good basis with most of the other Slytherins in his year (apart from Pansy, but Harry can't stand that vain, snobby bitch and sometimes he can't help but show his dislike a little with a few sharp barbs). He's aware that he seems to have made a few enemies outside of his own house, but Harry finds it hard within himself to give a shit about them.

He feels like he has done well in his classes so far and has already started his revision in preparation for the exams. He admits to himself that he has done better in some classes than others. He is within the top few of his year in defence, transfiguration, and charms and has also done decently well in potions, though he has realised that it takes him a lot of effort to get to that point. He is no natural when it comes to potions that's for sure. He has kind of left astronomy, herbology and history to the wayside since he finds it hard to gather enthusiasm for the subjects, but believes he can get an ok mark if he studies hard enough in the next few weeks.

It was a Thursday night and Harry was spending yet another few hours studying in the common room, this time joined by Draco, Theo and Blaise. He doesn't know how long he had been at it, but the words had started to mould together and Harry could feel a headache coming on. He took off his glasses to rub his eyes a little and let out a gusty sigh.

"Alright, I am so done for the night, I need a break" Harry looked around the usually warm and homey feeling common room and felt a bit suffocated. "I need to go for a walk for a bit" This got the attention of Theo and Draco.

"Merlin yes! I'm in!" Harry didn't know why Theo was feeling so fed up considering he does half the amount of studying that Harry does. He wouldn't mind the company though. He has been spending more and more time alone studying lately.

"Curfew was half an hour ago" Blaise informed them without even lifting his head from his potions book. Damn. Harry was rather hoping to go outside for a bit of fresh air. Bugger it.

"Cloak?" Harry suggested. Theo, who had begun to drop in disappointment perked up a bit and started to shove his books away which Harry took as answer enough. Draco started doing the same.

"I need to get up for a bit too." Late night walk outside under the invisibility cloak it is then.

"I don't think a cloak is going to help you much if you get caught." Oh right. Sometimes Harry forgets that he hasn't told Blaise about his cloak. He isn't as close to him as his other two dorm mates and has heeded Yaxley's warning about not blabbing to anyone who would listen about it. He shared a look with Draco and Theo, which Blaise didn't notice since he still hasn't lifted his head up.

"We'll be fine" Blaise sighed

"Whatever."

* * *

"Christ, I needed this" Harry was in the middle of Theo and Draco and they had the cloak around their shoulders, ready to pull over their heads if they come across anyone. Harry pulled in another deep breath of fresh air. It was getting warmer in the nights now and the sky was so clear that it was littered with twinkling stars. Harry looked back up at the castle and got that feeling that he had been getting on and off for the past few weeks. Dread. He was not looking forward to a summer away from magic and with the god damned Dursley's, how he wished he could use a few cutting curses on them.

"You have been studying a shit load" Theo sounded carefree. Harry has learned over the months that it takes a fair bit for him to be anything but. He's definitely the more laid back of them.

"I just want to make sure I do well" Theo snorted.

"Harry, you've been studying all year, you have nothing to worry about." Draco turned to face Harry a bit.

"Theo's right if anyone has to worry it's him" Harry chuckled then ducked a little as Theo stretched over his head in order to whack Draco on the arm.

"Hey! I'll have you know that I have studied for three days in a row now!" Draco and Harry both burst out laughing at that.

"Well considering all these months we have been at school, it's good job you've spent at least three days studying." Theo pursed his lips in what Harry noticed as an attempt to hide a smile.

"I need new friends who aren't gigantic swats that make me feel bad for only doing the bare minimum" Theo sighed dramatically.

"Hey! Harry's the gigantic swat, I'm just a normal sized one thank you!" Theo and Draco laughed again, while Harry just rolled his eyes. Truth was that Harry had spent a lot of his time studying books on the everyday life of wizards, jobs, running of the wizarding world, laws, and bits of history, things that Draco and Theo had grown up knowing. Not to mention all the reading ahead he had been doing, he was determined not to be the same Harry he was at beginning of the school year, where he was clueless and lost and went around gasping and jerking in wonder and surprise at every turn. He must have looked like an idiot. Harry was just about to inform his friends of this when he smelt something strange.

"Hey, can you guys smell that?" It smelt like something was burning. Draco jerked his arm up and pinched his nose shut.

"I'm not falling for that again! I almost passed out after Theo ate those sprouts at Christmas"

"I haven't farted you dolt! It smells like something's burning"

"Ye, I can smell it to" Theo frowned and started to look around. They had been doing a circle around the main entrance building and were almost at the back. Draco cautiously brought his hand down and took a tentative sniff then frowned, part in confusion, part relief. As someone who had also had the misfortune of smelling Theo's gas Christmas night, Harry could understand the relief.

"Let's just go, someone might be out here" Harry pulled the cloak over their heads and they started to walk quickly toward the next corner in order to reach the back entrance into the building. As they turned the corner, however, they discovered where the smell was coming from. Down the pathway, towards the edge of the forbidden forest, a hut was on fire. Harry knew that that was Hagrid's hut, he had developed a bit of a liking for the dolt over the past few months. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was a friendly sort.

"Shit!" Harry stopped and quickly debated his options.

"Come on, we have to go quickly before someone sees that and comes running" Draco pronounced and then started to head towards the building but Harry was torn and pulled him back.

"Wait! What if someones in there?" Draco paused and sent an anxious look down towards the hut.

"I'm sure someone will see it soon."

"By then someone could be hurt, or worse" Draco frowned and Harry looked to Theo.

"Whatever we are going to do we have to do it quick," They both seemed to be looking to him to decide. Christ! What was he doing just standing here, if they get caught out after curfew they will get a detention, big fucking deal, Harry didn't think he could live with himself if he ran off back to the common room and found out that someone was hurt or dead from that fire, all because the three of them wanted to avoid a little trouble. With that thought, Harry came out from under the cloak and looked back at the other two.

"I'm going to see if I can help, you two go get a teacher or something" Harry had turned to run down the hill when Theo pulled him back by the arm.

"No way I'm coming with you" They looked at Draco who bit his lip and looked anxiously towards the fire.

"Fuck, let's go" The three of them sprinted towards the burning hut and it wasn't until they were close enough that they could feel it's stinging heat that Harry realised that sending for some help is actually the better part of this plan.

"Draco! Go get some teachers!" Draco, who was staring at the fire with fear, turned to Harry and nodded before he ran back up the path. Theo turned to Harry and raised his voice a little to be heard above the sound of the fire

"What should we do?" Harry wasn't sure, the idea of helping was a lot easier than actually doing it. He was just contemplating stepping away and waiting for some help when they heard some sounds coming from inside the hut, like someone was moving about and knocking things over. Harry and Theo shared a horror-filled glance. Someone was inside.

"Shit shit shit" The whole right side and the door to the hut was aflame. "We need to try putting the fire on the door out or...maybe there's another entrance" It was a small hut but worth a look. "See if you can find a back door or a big window or something" Theo nodded and ran towards the back of the hut. Harry had read about the water making charm, but hadn't attempted it since it was an N.E.W.T level spell. If there was ever a time to try though… Harry pulled out his wand pointed it at the door and intoned "Aguamenti!"… nothing happened "Aguamenti!" Still nothing.

"Fuck!, Agumanenti! Agumanenti! Agumanenti!" The last one had a bit of a result with some water spurting from the end of his wand, but it was hardly enough to fill a glass never mind put a dent in the fire. Just then Theo came back.

"Nothing."

"Shit… I'll try to find a bucket or something and run to the lake and get some water" Harry knew that was pointless really since by the time he did that and went back to get more… it wasn't going to put a dent in it. Theo's look said he had come to the same conclusion.

"let me try something," Harry frowned as Theo took out his wand took a deep breath and then conducted a spell Harry didn't recognise, aiming the spell at himself. Harry couldn't see a change but Theo looked relieved, then he started to walk towards the hut.

"What the hell! Stop! What are you doing!" Harry tried to pull him back, but since Theo was both bigger and stronger than he was, he mainly just dangled off of his arm.

"It's fine!, The fire can't hurt me right now! I can't hold it for long though so let go of me!" Harry reluctantly let go and watched in growing trepidation as Theo walked up to the door of the hut, seemingly immune to the heat, and pulled it open. A short blast of fire erupted out and Harry yelled in horror as it seemed to engulf Theo. However, after that initial blast, it died back a little and Theo was standing there, wide-eyed and shaky, but unharmed. Harry didn't have long to bask in his relief and wonder, as not long after that a large dog came charging out of the door. Theo yelped in surprise and moved away from the hut and back to Harry.

"How did you do that?" Harry started to pat down Theo's chest and arms and just bloody all over. Not so much as a singed hair.

"Fire resistance spell." Christ, Harry has really got to start asking about the other's affinity lessons.

"That was amazing!" Theo shrugged.

"I guess...still, I can't believe we just did all that to save a bloody dog." Harry looked down at the dopey looking thing that was cowering behind his legs, and privately thought that he would have done all this even if he knew it was only a dog inside. Hell, he might have been even more enthusiastic about the rescue. Harry really liked dogs. Just then they heard something from inside the hut. It sounded like something else was moving in there.

"Come out quick!" Harry shouted. The fire was already threatening to engulf the gap that Theo's opening of the door created. They waited a while until they heard a rather strange sound. It was hard to describe, it was something between a yelp and a quiet roar. Quiet for a roar anyway. Harry and Theo shot a look at each other then took a few more steps back from the hut. There were more sounds of things being pushed over and smashing inside before the doorway darkened with a shape. The blur moved out from the door a little and that's when Theo and Harry got their first proper look. What. The. Fuck. That was either a gigantic lizard or a rather small Dragon. It had black scales with ridges all along it's back, a lizard-like face, and eyes that threatened violence. Everyone seemed to freeze for a moment. Harry and Theo staring wide-eyed at the dra-thing (Harry really didn't want to call it a dragon), the gigantic lizard staring at Harry and Theo, and then the dog shooting looks at all of them from between Harry's legs. The moment of seemingly frozen time was broken when the lizard-thing opened its mouth and let out that weird yelpy roar again.

It was when Harry could see the fire building inside its throat that his inner denial broke and he admitted to himself that he was facing off with a seemingly pissed off dragon. A rather small, probably baby dragon, but a dragon all the same. Theo and Harry seemed to snap out of their horrified trance at the same time and they both yelped and dived to the side as the dragon let out a gust of fire. Luckily the fire breath was smaller than what Harry initially feared it would be and neither of them were hit with the flame.

"Theo! put that spell back on your self!" Harry had barely enough time to finish that sentence before the dragon turned it's head to him and let out another flame of fire that Harry only just managed to avoid hitting him straight on. He did feel a burning stinging heat all up his left arm however and when he looked he noticed that his cloak was on fire. He ripped it off and threw it away from himself, revealing red skin that Harry purposelessly didn't look too closely at. Harry looked up when the dragon let out another of his roars and noticed that it had started advancing on him. Harry jumped up and pointed his wand at it.

"Hey! Dragon over here!" At Theo's call, the dragon turned its head to look at him and Harry used that opportunity to cast a cutting spell at its neck. Harry felt his affinity magic kick in and put everything he had into it. He hit the mark and a spray of blood along with a loud screech erupted from the dragon.

It seemed that Harry hadn't hurt it enough to disable it or bloody kill the fucking thing though as it roared again and started to build up its fire whilst also starting to charge at Harry. If Harry thought the dragon was pissed off, before it's nothing to what it's feeling now and it seemed dead set on its goal of getting at him, no matter how much yelling Theo did. Harry spun around and ran up the path. He then turned his neck to look over his shoulder and pointed his wand behind himself, trying to aim for a leg.

"Bombarda Maxima!" There was a sickening crack sound followed by another ear piercing screech and the dragon stumbled to the ground. Harry stopped, turned around, aimed his wand at the Dragon who seemed to be building up fire again, and was just about to finish the fucker off when there was a commotion behind him near the back entrance to the school.

"Norbert! No! What are you doing?"

"Hagrid! Stop!" Another voice shouted. Harry turned his head slightly so he still had the dragon in his sights, who seemed to have stopped building his fire at the sounds of the new voices. Behind him were Hagrid and Dumbledore, both coming down the path at a quick pace.

"Professor Dumbledore sir, look what they've done to poor Norbert!" Hagrid made as if to go to the Dragon but it whipped its head in his direction and let out another roar and he stopped.

"Stand back Hagrid" Dumbledore seemed calm but Harry noticed that his eyes weren't twinkling right now.

"He didn't mean it Dumbledore, Norbert's a good dragon I swear." The dragon, Norbert apparently (fucking Norbert the dragon), started building up fire again, Dumbledore aimed his wand and stunned the dragon with one spell and then had it in chains with another. Harry finally relaxed his stance and Theo ran up the path and got to Harry's side, given the passed out dragon a wide berth. Dumbledore cast a spell which made an ethereal Pheonix appear, similar to what he had seen Snape do once with a doe, then he spoke into it,

"Professor Snape, please make your way to the Gatekeepers hut at once, there is an emergency concerning two of your students and-" Dumbledore looked at the dragon. "-a dragon" Harry would like to see Snape's face when he got that message. Dumbledore turned to the two of them.

"What happened" Luckily Theo took the rains with the explanation since Harry was feeling a little shaky himself.

"We were out for a walk when we spotted a fire" Dumbledore turned his attention to the still burning hut before turning back to them "We went to help and when we opened the door that bloody evil dragon came out roaring fire at us and attacking- well first a dog ran out- but then the dragon came and it was attacking and I was fire resistant – I mean I used a spell to make me so, but the dragon went after Harry, probably because he cut its neck with a cutting curse, you know I didn't think a cutting curse would work on a dragon, must have been pretty powerful, or maybe because the Dragon was a small one?- anyway- Harry was running and-"

"Thank you , will you please escort Harry to the infirmary while we deal with this" Theo was obviously a little shaky too. Not so laid back now. Theo took a deep breath looked at Harry, the looked at the arm that he was cradling. His eyes got a little wide.

"Merlin! That looks bad!" Harry had been trying to avoid looking but at Theo's exclamation he looked down and wished he hadn't. Oh god, that was a lot of big blisters. It was as if a dam burst and Harry suddenly felt the burning, stinging, rather awful pain. "wow you look pale all of the sudden Harry" If Harry wasn't hurting so bad right now he would smack Theo.

"Yes, best to get him to the infirmary, Professor Snape and I will deal with this and be up to check on you shortly." Sometime during Harry's thoughts of 'Ow, ow, fucking ow' Snape must have arrived as he was standing just behind them staring at the dragon, unruffled but clearly a little surprised.

"I thought you were joking about the dragon" Harry really wished that was the case.

* * *

The whole sordid adventure had more consequences for Harry than he thought it warranted considering a member of Dumbledore's staff had been keeping a fucking dragon on school grounds. Harry, Theo and Blaise lost Slytherin ten points each for being out past curfew and got given detention with Hagrid, which Harry suspects is not going to be pleasant considering how Hagrid now seems to hate them after Harry had hurt his beast of a pet and got it sent to Romania. Harry also ended up spending the night in the infirmary with foul-smelling gunk on his arm and was almost bloody killed, let's not forget that little tidbit. Without Yaxley's teachings he probably would have died, teachings that Dumbledore believes he shouldn't be entitled to.

He thought Hagrid should count his lucky stars that Dumbledore is the incompetent arse that he is and that he still has a job. You'd think the giant oaf would be grateful that they had saved his dog, however, the man seems to suspect they were the ones that instigated the whole thing in the first place, apparently finding it hard to believe that a fire-breathing dragon was the one that caused a wooden hut to catch fire. Hell, he saw no consequences at all really, even though Harry knows that keeping dragons is bloody illegal. Harry figured he could kick up a fuss about it, but going up against Dumbledore doesn't sound like a good idea right now and Hagrid seems to have Dumbledore's unwavering support. He won't forget though. Harry always took Draco's raving about Dumbledore's incompetence as a by-product of Draco's father's political and ideological war he had with Dumbledore. Now, however, he thinks he may have a point.

Harry was trying to not let the event ruin his last few weeks in Hogwarts, but that was hard when he was standing outside in the dark with Hagrid, Draco, Theo, and Fang the dog, being told that for their detention they're going into the forbidden forest. At night.

"What?!" Draco exclaimed. Harry simply sighed in resignation.

"We're looking for more of this." Hagrid held up a plant with red and peach leaves, "Professor Snape needs some more for his potions and such" Trust Snape to cash in on their misfortune.

"Wouldn't it be easier to find colourful plants… I don't know...in the daylight... when we can actually see shit." How the bloody hell had this detention been signed off as ok. Hagrid gave him a sour look that quickly changed to slightly smug. Yep, Harry was definitely on Hagrid's shit list.

"This plant can only be plucked at night, during the third quarter moon phase" Of bloody course. "Right you two" Hagrid pointed at Draco and Theo, "with me" Wait a minute "-you, can go with fang" Yep that's Harry he's pointing at.

"You want me to go in there with only Fang the cowardly dumb dog for company?!" Harry rather liked Fang, but he's not stupid enough to count him as any form of protection.

"You'll be fine, we won't need to go in far" Hagrid paused then and looked Harry up and down, and seemed to contemplate something before shifting on his feet a little. "make sure you don't go in to deep, if you hear something your not sure of, don't hesitate, make your way back out, and send up red sparks if you need any help" That wasn't reassuring at all.

"Your joking right? You can't send Harry in there alone" Draco turned to look at the forest and actually honest to god gulped. Harry didn't think people did that outside of movies.

"He'll be fine, come on then off we go" With that, they strolled to the right and Harry to the left and he was left alone in the bloody dark/forbidden/dangerous as shit forest. Harry looked down at Fang who was already cowering. Well almost alone.

Harry planned to stay on the edges of the forest and pretend to have looked for the plant and make his way back in an hour, however, his curiosity won out and he found himself walking into the blasted thing regardless of what his common sense was screaming at him. At first, he told himself that it couldn't be that dangerous since it does surround a school after all, but then he thought about Hogwarts itself and realised that the wizarding world wasn't as big on health and safety as the muggle world was and figured there are probably all sorts in the forest. It was after this thought had come to him that he started paying more attention to his surroundings, listening for any scary sounds, looking for any movement from the light his lantern was throwing, watching Fang's body language to see if he was hearing and seeing things he was missing.

The deeper he went in, the darker and denser the forest become and Harry started to slow a little when the lantern started to only give enough light to show a few feet of the ground in front of him. It was as if the forest was swallowing up the light.

"Spooky huh Fang?" Harry was just about to finally listen to his instincts and make his way back when there was a crack of a snapping twig close to his left side. Harry swung around and pointed the Lantern at the area. Taking a deep shaky breath, he squinted his eyes to try and see what was there. He couldn't see anything but plants and trees. Harry turned to make his way back out of the forest when it suddenly went quiet. Harry hadn't realised how much sound there was in the forest, the cricking and chirping of insects, the wind rustling the plants and bushes, the slight creaking of the trees, it wasn't sounds you noticed until it was gone and you truly were in silence. Harry froze. Fang let out a loud whine then suddenly took off running almost pulling Harry's arm out of its socket, Harry got pulled harshly to the ground and dragged a few feet until he let go of the lead and then he could only watch as the blasted dog abandoned him.

Harry sat up and brushed off dirt, leaves and a few spots of blood from his grazed arms and picked up his thankfully still burning lantern. Heart pounding hard, Harry stood up fully, cradling the lantern like a lifeline, and looked into the seemingly never-ending darkness that surrounded him. It was at this point that he realised that he wasn't sure which way was out and which way was deeper in. He couldn't even tell you which way Fang had run off to. He was all turned around, and every way looked the same.

"Shit, shit, shit" Harry pulled out his wand with every intention of sending red sparks up into the air when he was suddenly and violently pushed from behind and he went crashing to the ground once more, the lantern smashing on impact. A buzzing growling sound came from behind him and Harry felt something scratch a burning line down his right leg. Yelping in pain and shock Harry, now in complete darkness, turned from lying on his stomach onto his back and aimed his wand at the area the growling was coming from.

"Confringo!" The very welcome feeling of his affinity magic rushed through his body and a large explosion erupted from his wand. The loud echoing bang was also accompanied by a short cut-off screech and a spray of liquid that rained down on him. In the moment of quiet after the eruption, the sound of more buzzing growling could be heard coming from Harry's left, showing that whatever Harry had just blown to pieces had some friends. Hopping up from the ground as fast and as nimble as his injured leg would allow him, Harry started running in a random direction, shooting red sparks up to the sky as he did so.

"Lumos!" Using the light from his wand, Harry limped his way through the forest, hearing the sounds of chasing steps behind him and heaving panicked breaths. He came to a small clearing and Harry realised he was never going to outrun the things with his leg and figured this was a good place to fight whatever the fuck they are off. Or at least try to anyway.

Once he reached the far end of the clearing he turned around and pointed his wand at the area that the running footsteps could be heard to be coming from. The sounds had just gotten close enough to suggest they were about to break through the clearing when the sound changed. Screeching accompanied by clopping sounds could be heard and the sound of scattering footsteps soon followed. Harry continued to stand ready with his wand pointed when something started to come out from the trees. Something large. When it came to the light of his Lumos, Harry sucked in a sharp breath.

"Stay back!" It was half horse half man. Harry had seen pictures of Centaurs, but seeing the real thing was still breathtakingly strange to him.

"Relax young wizard, they have gone now." Harry kept up his alert stance.

"What were they?"

"You disturbed their home, young wizards should not be so far into the forest" Harry could agree with that. The Centaur turned its face up to the sky.

"The stars warn us" Ok… "Things will soon come to pass, just like things have come to pass before, and just how thing will come to pass after" This guy was loopy.

"Ummm… well, thanks for saving me and for your words of...wisdom" Harry brought his wand down to his side but stayed alert. "If you could just point me to the way back to the school..." Its lupine-humanesk head turned to Harry and it pointed it's hand up to the stars.

"Things are happening young wizard, you will play a part." This was starting to annoy him.

"What? Could you just point the way-"

"The Black Onyx Council is rising again, a new leader has emerged, one that is more powerful than even the last, a war will be fought," His piercing eyes met Harry's. "you will fight, your blood paints you a warrior, who you will fight for… it is a choice" He looked back up to the sky yet again. "...but... perhaps it has already been decided... perhaps you have already made a choice, though you do not yet know it" What the actual fuck.

"What do you-"

"Frienze!" Hagrid came out from the trees and into the clearing, followed closely by Draco and Theo. "Thank you for taking care of Harry here." Hagrid turned to look at Harry then. "Alright there lad?" Alright? Am I alright!

"No, I am bloody well not alright! I was chased through the fucking pitch black forest and attacked by some screeching buzzing...monstery things!" At this, he pointed at his bloody leg "My leg fucking hurts, I'm covered in smelly creature blood, and then this...guy came and started going on about some shit I don't understand! All because I thought it was a good idea toplay hero and run _towards_ a fire! A fire that started because you-" at this he pointed a finger at Hagrid " -thought it was a good idea to keep an illegal fucking DRAGON in your bloody wooden hut and I stupidly couldn't leave when Draco said to because of my stupid, dumb conscious!" Harry was heaving in breaths by the end of this and Hagrid was looking at him with wide eyes and was that...yes that was guilt. Well about bloody time! The oaf was unfit to work with children.

"Right... looking back it might not have been a good idea to let you go off on your own-"

"Let me! You bloody insisted!" Harry was one word away from hexing the giant.

"Just you wait until my father hears about this" Harry looked at Draco and sighed.

"Can we just go back to the fucking castle so I can get this leg dealt with, or are we all going to stand around here while I bleed on the ground...knowing this fucking place I'm probably feeding it it's favourite meal."

* * *

After getting his leg fixed up in yet another visit to the infirmary (he should really think about reserving a bed there indefinitely) Harry had managed to calm down enough that when Dumbledore came to see what Harry had gotten himself into this time, he was able to calmly explain the situation.

"- How you bloody thought that letting that oaf take us into the forbidden forest as a detention was a good idea I will never know!" Well, he was maybe not calm but he wasn't shaken up any-more. Just pissed off.

"It was a lapse in judgement on my part, I was not aware that Hagrid planned to allow you to go alone, I was under the impression that you would be accompanied by him throughout the short visit into the edges of the forest." Harry scoffed. Lapse of judgement indeed.

"Sorry professor Dumbledore sir, I told him not to go so far in and that he should shoot red sparks if he saw anything-" Hagrid stood at the end of the infirmary bed that Harry was currently laid out on and Harry turned his attention to him.

"OH! I'm sorry that I got lost and was too busy getting attacked by a raving creature to have time to shoot up the red sparks earlier!" Harry shot a look at his wand sitting on the bedside table and for a moment he almost reached for it to blast Hagird across the room.

"Hagrid, perhaps it is best if you leave, for the time being, I will be with you shortly so that we can have a talk." Hagrid sent a miserable look at Dumbledore and then walked out of the room with his shoulders drooped.

"I would like to assure you, Harry, that I will not allow this to happen again."

"you're firing him?"

"Do you really wish that Harry?" Yes "to take a man's livelihood away from him, because of something that wasn't truly his fault." WHAT! Harry was about to start raving again when Dumbledore hurried on, probably seeing the incredulous anger on his face. "What I mean my boy-," Not his fucking boy "-Is that Hagrid would not have realised the danger he was putting you in, it was I that was in the wrong here, I should have been more clear with him about what would be appropriate. Hagrid doesn't have the best judgement of danger." Probably because he was huge and what would be a danger to others wouldn't be such a big deal to him. Dumbledore did have a point. It was mainly his fault. If only he knew how to get _him_ fired.

"I just want to sleep, then spend these last few weeks studying for my exams and relaxing with my friends before the summer comes and I'm stuck in the muggle world again." At the start of his sentence, Dumbledore seemed a little amused, by the end, however, Harry was sure he caught a flash of alarm cross his face, though it was there and gone quick enough that it was hard to be completely certain.

"I'm sure you will have wonderful summer, my boy" He seemed strangely chastising about his dread of summer.

"You obviously haven't met the Dursley's, sir." Though he would like to see his uncle's face if Dumbledore turned up at his doorstep, colourful robes and pointed hat and all. Though on second thought, a visit from the headmaster during the summer would only be the cherry on top of an already disgustingly rotten cake.

"I shall leave you to rest and I hope you have the quiet few weeks that you desire." That makes the two of them.

* * *

Harry knuckled down in the last few weeks and was confident that he had done well in his exams. He didn't feel much relief by the end of them though, stupid summer. As he stepped onto the Hogwarts express he couldn't help but think about how he felt the last time he was on here, full of excitement, now on the way back things were very different.

"So you'll be coming over at end of summer right?" Draco asked him.

"I really want to, but whether I'll be able to get away from the Dursley's..." Draco frowned.

"They can't stop you!" With him not being able to use magic Harry thinks that they could stop him if they wanted. "We will just have to come get you, I'd like to see them say no to my father." That's not a half bad idea. Harry smiled for the first time in days.

"Make sure you get them to sign that form too, so that you can come with us in the year for our rituals." Theo reminded him. Harry had been thinking of ways he was going to get them to sign that form. After spending Halloween and the Imbolc ritual in early February practically alone in Hogwarts, Harry really didn't want to be left behind.

"I'll get them to sign." Somehow.

As the train left Hogsmead station Harry tried to focus his thoughts on how he will be coming back here at the end of summer. In the meantime he has to avoid getting in trouble with the ministry by resisting the urge to hex the Dursley's to kingdom come, how hard can that be?

End of Year 1

 _Author note: Year 2 will be posted here soon :) . Just so your all aware my update rate may slow to one chapter every one and a half to two weeks due to the Christmas job that I have and the normally busy Christmas going-ons. The rate will pick up in January._

 _Thanks for reading! And thank you to everyone who has followed, favourited, and reviewed my story._


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